Western Standard - Smith’s Big Referendum Gambit

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00:07:00.000 Good day, good morning. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, coming to you with a live stream this morning on February 20th, a nice cold morning here in Calgary.

00:07:17.440 We're going to be chatting today about the big speech from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith last night, broadcast at a quarter to seven Mountain Standard Time.

00:07:30.000 Quite a landmark speech, one that will probably be remembered when the books on her premiership are written.

00:07:38.440 Where it goes, we're going to speculate.

00:07:40.980 We're totally going to speculate, do our best to analyze here.

00:07:46.400 But I want to involve you guys in this.

00:07:49.760 You can post, if you have comments, questions, put it in the comments if you're watching this on X, YouTube, wherever.

00:07:56.500 um but also you can call i have not done uh the call-in before we've just got set up for

00:08:02.820 kind of the call-in here you can join the conversation at uh 1-866-479-west extension

00:08:11.560 711 you got the number right there at the bottom of the screen uh 866-479-west extension 711 you

00:08:20.420 can you can call in uh hopefully you have something intelligent to say if not i'll hear

00:08:25.380 yet anyway but uh i know uh cory and marty up north have been doing the call-in feature on

00:08:31.140 our shows lately i've i've enjoyed watching and listening to that uh maybe we'll have maybe we'll

00:08:36.340 have fun here too um okay so let's talk about the speech um it's the reaction right across

00:08:46.260 canada has been uh furious fast and furious response to what she's had to say um there is

00:08:54.580 a series of referendum questions. We're going to get to that, but we'll kind of start with

00:08:57.920 the earlier parts of her speech first. She talked about, you know, there's a budget coming

00:09:03.920 for Alberta next week. It's not expected to be good. Huge, huge deficit, possibly a record

00:09:10.820 deficit. She, I mean, like most Alberta premiers who have had deficits, pointed to oil and oil

00:09:19.820 is down and it's it is a mugs game try to predict this stuff uh sometimes it works out sometimes it

00:09:25.900 doesn't but uh you know anyone who could predict this stuff accurately would be uh would be a rich

00:09:30.640 man um and the government got it wrong i mean and it's pretty common to get it wrong it's it's

00:09:36.780 difficult stuff to predict but she's pointing to uh oil and uh yeah to some extent yeah oil is uh

00:09:44.280 is down quite a bit but didn't really fess up to she can't control that no premier can control the 1.00

00:09:53.700 price of oil but what can you control you can control your taxes and you can control your

00:09:58.400 spending and controlling spending is not something that alberta's government's been doing for a very

00:10:02.940 very long time uh spending has been wildly out of like danielle smith is i think run pretty good

00:10:10.320 government on a few different fronts. One of those fronts is not the budget. The budget's

00:10:17.040 been a disaster. It's been a pretty free spending government. And she says, oh, we're not going

00:10:24.040 to slash spending or anything, but we're going to limit spending to below inflation and population

00:10:29.700 growth. That's helpful. If they would have done that for the last three years, we'd be in a better

00:10:39.760 spot than we are now. J.C. Kenney, in his time as Premier, did not cut spending. He limited growth

00:10:46.480 in spending, and that was better than his predecessor, Rachel Notley, and Rachel Notley

00:10:52.040 continued largely what her predecessor, Alison Redford, had done, which is just an Ed Stelmack

00:10:57.440 before that. The budget is totally out of control, and there just doesn't seem to be any appetite

00:11:02.380 in the government for cutting spending, which is what's necessary here. But she's talking about

00:11:07.660 putting the brakes on spending increases it's better than nothing but it's not going to fix

00:11:13.160 the problem here we've got we've got structural budget problems and no one seems to really have

00:11:17.740 the appetite to do anything serious about it so okay uh one thing she did point to though

00:11:24.800 that i think is is a fair criticism um that she's made or i should say fair defense she's made

00:11:31.500 about some of the spending problems we've got is around immigration.

00:11:36.580 We've had 600,000 people come into Alberta recently,

00:11:41.860 wild numbers that we simply cannot integrate, we cannot assimilate,

00:11:48.260 we cannot make work in that kind of time.

00:11:52.160 And so she's pointed at these numbers largely controlled by Ottawa

00:11:55.300 and pointed at least put some of the blame on immigration.

00:12:00.260 And, I mean, the reaction to it from the usual suspects has been extremely predictable.

00:12:05.060 Oh, you're blaming immigrants, blah, blah, blah.

00:12:08.500 Rachel Notley, let me pull up this one. 0.75

00:12:10.420 Rachel Notley more or less said that Danielle Smith is a Nazi. 0.98

00:12:17.280 Let me see, where is this one?

00:12:20.860 Hold on.

00:12:22.360 This is, yeah, so Rachel Notley's response here, it's not, it's far from the craziest response.

00:12:29.400 but it's um it's definitely not out of line with uh with a lot of the response we've seen

00:12:36.840 uh rachel notley says danielle smith making racism great again first they came for the trans people

00:12:45.880 then a then they came for the unionized workers next it was judges now it's immigrants i think

00:12:53.160 that you or someone you love won't be next if you think someone you love won't be next you're

00:12:57.960 sorely mistaken and then it goes on and on and on but uh you know that that's taking from a poem of

00:13:03.560 uh of a lutheran i think lutheran pastor during the second world war who was imprisoned who wrote

00:13:08.840 you know first they came for the jews because i was not a jew and then they came for the unions etc

00:13:14.440 so this is rachel notley saying uh controlling immigration simply limiting the number of

00:13:23.960 immigrants we have coming into alberta is nazism nazism this is um it's the alberta reich uh i

00:13:32.820 mean so it's predictable crazy stuff but no we've got uh our schools are swamped anyone who knows a

00:13:38.420 teacher uh in our big cities particularly parts of our big cities in alberta that have a significantly

00:13:45.280 higher uh proportion of migrants in them will tell you the big problem in our schools is that 1.00

00:13:52.660 we've got a huge number of students who do not speak English adequately. In many cases, not at

00:13:58.840 all. Like no, no English. There are a very significant number of students in our schools

00:14:05.320 who speak no English. Like we've brought in people to this country who don't speak our language. 1.00

00:14:14.520 And then in addition to people who speak no English, huge number who also speak poor English.

00:14:20.740 And so you have completely dysfunctional classrooms, classrooms where you can't focus on a lesson being taught because a huge number of the students can't understand what's being taught.

00:14:32.100 So strains like that or people who are coming in and are drawing on social services, they have not paid into this.

00:14:40.060 They haven't been a part of the social contract.

00:14:41.840 They have not been paying taxes in, but they're withdrawing services out.

00:14:46.380 Maybe they're working, but they're working in low-wage jobs where they're not paying very much, if any, tax, but they're able to draw on social services.

00:14:57.160 They're able to draw on health care, these kinds of things.

00:15:01.140 And so this creates a huge net negative financial pressure on Alberta, in addition to all the social problems this obviously creates.

00:15:11.820 So she pointed to this as one of the culprits, at least, for the budget deficit we have, some of the strain we've got on infrastructure, on education spending.

00:15:27.860 And the usual suspects have just completely lost their minds.

00:15:32.660 So, OK, then she proposed a series of referendum questions. 0.77

00:15:37.880 Let's see. One, two, three, four, five. I think it's ten. Six, seven, eight, nine. Okay, it looks like nine. I'm going to go through each of these. It's pretty broad ranging. Referendums are not new to Canada. They're not new to Alberta. But they're not usual. They're very unusual in our system.

00:16:02.460 And I generally favor us having at least some more direct democracy, but I'm not sure about this, the way this is being, yeah, having nine, ten questions, in addition to citizen initiative questions like independence, which is likely for a vote in the fall.

00:16:25.320 So in, I think it's October.

00:16:28.960 What's the date we've got for this thing?

00:16:31.440 John, can you find me the date of the referendum?

00:16:33.360 I don't know why I don't have that handy.

00:16:35.000 I should.

00:16:37.040 So the premier in her address laid out these questions.

00:16:41.180 The first are a series of non-constitutional questions, largely the things that Alberta can do on its own.

00:16:47.540 And the second are a set of constitutional questions that would require negotiation with the federal government and other provinces.

00:16:54.340 So let's go through. We'll start with the non-constitutional questions. We'll call them the domestic Alberta questions first.

00:17:02.180 Do you support the government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purposes of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic immigration, of migration, and giving Albertans first priority on new employment opportunities?

00:17:17.920 Okay. So, I mean, it's a big question, but it's important. I wouldn't be a surprise to anyone that, yeah, of course we should. Of course I think we should. But I'm wondering why that is a referendum question. Just do it. Like, why are we waiting until the fall to vote on this?

00:17:39.760 ask any poll albertans the super majority of people including most uh successful and integrated

00:17:49.600 migrants will agree with this that yes we should take control of immigration from ottawa quebec is 0.99

00:17:55.400 allowed to do it in large measure so we should do it too uh you know let's let's send notice to

00:18:00.440 ottawa right now that we're demanding the same powers as quebec has and we're going to use those

00:18:06.420 powers to limit migration, to focus on economic migrants, and prioritize Albertans getting jobs

00:18:16.620 before we bring in people to fill those jobs. I think almost everyone except for the Rachel 0.52

00:18:22.440 Notley's and those types are going to agree with this. I'm not sure why we have to wait

00:18:27.620 until the fall to vote on this. We should just do it right now. And I think the government's

00:18:35.240 got a mandate for it you know we've been talking about this this was uh you know not hidden that

00:18:41.760 this is something the ucp wants to do the ucp has been talking about taking control of immigration

00:18:45.660 for some time especially since uh danielle smith became the leader of the party and the premier

00:18:50.080 albertans know that this is something that's been in the books uh that's been that's been cooking

00:18:55.500 i don't know why we don't just do this all right second question do you support the government of

00:19:01.540 Alberta introducing a law mandating that only Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and

00:19:06.580 individuals with an Alberta-approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially funded

00:19:11.100 programs such as healthcare, education, and other social services. Okay, so what's implied there is

00:19:19.200 that there will now be an Alberta-approved immigration status. In addition to the federal

00:19:23.480 immigration status, Alberta will decide, do we want someone here or do we not want this person

00:19:33.080 here? And if Alberta does not want this person here, we're not going to give them social services 0.81

00:19:41.480 funded by taxpayers. So healthcare, education, we could put in there, driver's licenses, that kind

00:19:47.520 thing. Again, I'm not sure. I'm not sure why we would vote on that. I think most people would

00:19:55.020 agree. Of course, not everyone. No one agrees on everything. But I chance to say a majority of

00:20:00.900 Albertans, including a majority of well-integrated and successful migrants, would agree with this.

00:20:06.860 Let's just do it. Let's just go ahead and do it.

00:20:14.860 All right. Next question was, assuming that all Canadian citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for social support programs as they do now,

00:20:24.700 do you support the government of Alberta introducing a law requiring all individuals

00:20:29.100 with non-permanent legal immigration status to reside in Alberta for at least 12 months before

00:20:34.600 qualifying for any provincially funded social support programs? I think that's pretty similar

00:20:41.520 to the previous question, question number two. Again, I think most people would agree with it.

00:20:48.160 In fact, that's just common sense stuff that's crazy that we're not already doing. And we don't

00:20:52.860 need anyone's permission for that. We don't need Ottawa's permission for that. We should just do it.

00:20:58.140 So again, you know, this is a question that the Premier wants to put to a referendum that

00:21:02.640 I agree on. I think it's good policy that we should do. We should just do it. We should not

00:21:06.840 wait until the fall to do it. I would be shocked if this kind of thing was defeated in a referendum

00:21:12.820 question. Let's just make this government policy. Next one. Do you support the government of Alberta

00:21:22.240 introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship, such as passport,

00:21:27.360 birth certificate, or a citizenship card to vote in Alberta provincial election.

00:21:32.200 Again, why the hell are we not? Are we actually going to have the referendum without checking

00:21:37.680 people's proof of citizenship first? Absolutely, we should be checking proof of citizenship. 0.91

00:21:43.200 And for all of you people saying, oh, it's fascism, it's racism, it's mean to ask people

00:21:48.900 to show identity before voting uh some kind of card before voting just remember where you stood

00:21:55.780 during covid when people had to show a special identification to get in and buy a sandwich at a

00:22:01.620 restaurant or to get groceries oh it's like groceries you didn't need it but you had to you

00:22:06.460 know they made you mask up but you want to you want to go to a restaurant you want to watch a

00:22:10.260 movie you want to do anything really you had to uh you had to show you know uh jason kenny's uh

00:22:17.120 COVID vax card. So all of you who think that this is somehow racist and bigoted and fascistic

00:22:25.180 to show identification and proof of citizenship when you're voting, just think about where you

00:22:31.020 probably, in all chances, think about where you probably stood during COVID when people had to

00:22:36.200 show identification to buy a bloody sandwich. Also, you know, people saying, oh, some people,

00:22:44.580 you know, it's difficult for them to get ideas. If you are too stupid to get an identification 1.00

00:22:49.400 card, I don't want you voting. You're too stupid to vote. No, I don't agree that everyone should 1.00

00:22:55.900 vote. It's everyone's duty to vote. No, if you're too stupid to be able to go get yourself a driver's

00:23:02.040 license, you're probably too stupid to decide how much tax I should be paying. You're probably too 1.00

00:23:07.560 stupid to decide what the foreign policy of our country should be. You're too stupid to figure 1.00

00:23:12.900 those things out you're doing society a favor by not voting so it's a pretty low bar to set 1.00

00:23:19.740 that you've got the iq to go in and get a driver's license some kind of identification

00:23:26.760 if you can't do that or if you can't be bothered to do that we shouldn't be bothered to countervote

00:23:33.660 it's a pretty damn low bar to set so again i would have a hard time imagining most albertans would

00:23:42.400 have uh oh that was question five question five should be it right now there we go i have a hard

00:23:49.120 time imagining that most albertans would have a problem with this we're going to require proof

00:23:54.780 that you're eligible to vote before we let you vote i have to show proof that i'm eligible to

00:24:00.940 drive a car before i'm allowed to drive a car i have to show proof that i'm legally eligible to

00:24:05.920 own a firearm before I'm allowed to own a firearm. When I go buy a gun at Cabela's, I have to provide

00:24:12.960 my PAL. I have to provide my possession and acquisition license and show that I am legally

00:24:19.440 eligible to own a firearm. Why are we not required to do that when we vote? Now, I don't know what

00:24:28.100 what number of people are voting that are ineligible to vote. I can't say.

00:24:36.260 I know some areas in the States, it's rampant. There's probably significant scales of voter

00:24:44.640 fraud taking place there. What scale here? I don't know. But it does become a bigger concern

00:24:50.580 the more you have large numbers of people living in your society who are not citizens.

00:24:55.320 when everybody living in an area is generally a citizen it's less of an issue it's less likely

00:25:01.720 to be voter fraud people who are ineligible to vote to vote it's going to be less of an issue

00:25:05.900 at least maybe not no issue but it'll be less of an issue but when you've got massive numbers

00:25:11.700 of people massive numbers of people coming in who are not eligible to vote

00:25:17.240 it's something we got to be paying attention to so again i i'm not sure why we're having a

00:25:24.680 referendum on that. I like voting on stuff, I guess. But, you know, and citizens should have

00:25:32.520 a right to vote on some things. That's why I like the idea of citizens initiative, like we've got

00:25:37.260 going on for the independence referendum. That's something that the political class considers a

00:25:41.560 little too spicy to touch. Okay, I get that. I can appreciate that. But to their credit, the UCP

00:25:50.620 strengthened the citizens initiative legislation first they introduced it under kenny but it was

00:25:56.440 kind of unworkable at that time then they made it workable under smith um so to their credit

00:26:01.840 they've brought this in so when there's an issue that's too spicy citizens can do an end run around

00:26:07.160 the political class and require that we vote on this together and people can vote yes or no

00:26:12.180 so that's a good that's a reason for referendum and i think uh on major constitutional questions

00:26:18.480 that's that's a place for people to vote in direct democracy but this stuff is pretty standard you

00:26:26.480 know these five questions i've laid out here from the premier speech last night these are pretty

00:26:30.100 standard government policies that i think have broad support i like if people don't like them

00:26:37.380 those the opponents can go and do a citizen's initiative petition

00:26:41.140 and bring in uh their own referendum to repeal these laws you know when a government does

00:26:47.500 something that's not broadly got a democratic mandate that people don't broadly support.

00:26:53.100 Like, you know, think of the NDP, Rachel Notley's carbon tax. They did not have any democratic

00:26:57.320 mandate to do that, but they had the legal right to impose it. Okay. So if we had citizens initiative

00:27:03.360 legislation at that time, the people of Alberta could have gathered enough signatures and held a

00:27:08.320 referendum on overturning that legislation. That'd be an appropriate way to do it. Similarly here,

00:27:14.440 If people didn't like the five points put out by Smith here and she had just legislated it and passed by the legislature, then the opponents of this legislation could go out, collect the signatures and try to overturn these laws.

00:27:29.100 I don't think they'd be successful.

00:27:31.020 Maybe they'd get enough signatures for a vote, but I doubt they'd win the vote.

00:27:34.540 So I don't know, these five points around immigration, these are all very moderate things.

00:27:39.500 And like, my only problem with these policies is that they probably don't go hard enough. We have been swamped. You know, we have taken a migration model that, I mean, had its problems. I think it was over generous in the past, but it wasn't at least disastrous.

00:27:59.440 and then and we totally screwed the pooch we totally screwed or ottawa screwed the pooch on 1.00

00:28:04.300 it and we've got to reverse that we've got to engage at some level at least of of humane

00:28:11.540 remigration she's not talking about anything like that these are very moderate immigration policies

00:28:18.300 very moderate um that i think have got the broad support of the alberta public my only problem here

00:28:26.440 Two problems. One is it's probably a little too light, but, you know, I'll take what we can get.

00:28:30.760 This is a good step in the right direction, these policies.

00:28:33.420 Okay. But why would we have a referendum on this?

00:28:38.960 Just do it. Legislate this tomorrow. The legislature is in session.

00:28:43.260 There's a budget next week. Everyone's there.

00:28:45.520 Introduce the legislation. Pass it. Let's make this policy right now.

00:28:50.100 Let's do it. Let's not wait for the fall in a referendum campaign.

00:28:53.600 let's let's just do it now and if the opponents of these laws don't like it guess what we have

00:29:01.020 citizens initiative legislation you know Rachel Notley and these people can go out and they can 0.80

00:29:07.660 go in gather signatures in the cold like independent supporters are doing right now

00:29:12.040 they can go out they can gather signatures and they can force a referendum on repealing this

00:29:16.300 I don't think they'll be successful but you know that's up to them we'll see I think that's the

00:29:22.620 to do it you know um i like a degree of direct democracy but we do elect people for a reason

00:29:29.980 and that's to make decisions tough decisions complicated decisions and you know alberta has

00:29:37.420 pioneered a degree of direct democracy in this to check the ability of the political class to run

00:29:44.220 roughshod over um uh to to override the politicians if the politicians go astray

00:29:55.020 but this is a this is what we elect people to do to make to make decisions similarly uh when kenny

00:30:00.220 was premier you know we had two referendum questions uh held in conjunction with municipal

00:30:05.260 elections one was on uh getting rid of equalization which you know i'll talk a bit more about that in

00:30:10.940 in a bit but that got completely ignored obviously by ottawa nothing happened on equalization

00:30:15.420 whatsoever and the other one was around changing daylight savings time i forget it was pretty

00:30:21.580 complicated and that's the problem is like i think i think broadly people don't like our system

00:30:26.780 around daylight savings time uh but people also didn't necessarily like the reform that was

00:30:31.900 proposed in this referendum question it was confusing people don't know because that's

00:30:36.140 something that requires study it's not a strict yes or no question on something i don't even say

00:30:43.260 it's simple but say like independence do you believe alberta should be an independent country

00:30:47.340 or remain in canada people are going to have a thought about that they're going to have strong

00:30:51.100 feelings on it and they're going to know which way to vote for the most part daylight savings time

00:30:57.340 i don't even remember how i voted i remember i looked into it and i was like i could go this way

00:31:01.340 and go that way but the proposal there was one proposal that a lot of people liked which wasn't

00:31:05.740 even an option. That's something that a committee of MLAs for both parties, NDP and UCP could

00:31:11.640 probably actually agree on. It's totally non-ideological. It's a technical question.

00:31:17.880 Put it to a committee of MLAs, bring in some experts, they can study it, and then they just

00:31:23.160 make a decision. And if we don't like it, we can have a citizen's initiative to overturn it.

00:31:27.160 That's the way our system should work. We elect people, we pay these people to study the issues

00:31:33.680 and make a decision. And if we don't like the decision, we've got two options. We can throw

00:31:38.520 them out the next election. Or now, this is a new thing in our system, we can have a citizens

00:31:43.380 initiative petition to trigger a referendum to overturn their decision. And I think these first

00:31:51.300 five referendum questions concerning immigration fall into the category of this is what we elect

00:31:58.340 you to do. Just do it. Do these things right now. Immigration is a problem right now. And it's 1.00

00:32:05.840 something we got to deal with right now. And this is not a constitutional question. This is just

00:32:10.080 a straight up policy question. This probably got pretty broad public buy-in for these kinds of

00:32:15.260 measures. So just do it. I don't know why we have to have a referendum on it. I'm probably a bit

00:32:22.880 more forgiving, not entirely, but I'm a bit more forgiving on the second round of questions,

00:32:27.220 the constitutional ones let's talk about these

00:32:34.580 all right the first constitutional question is do you support the government of alberta working

00:32:40.580 with the governments of other willing provinces to amend the canadian constitution to have

00:32:45.780 provincial governments and not the federal government select the justices appointed

00:32:51.140 to the provincial king's bench and appeal courts

00:32:53.460 okay well that's interesting uh you know uh premier smith has talked a bit about this that

00:33:04.740 you know quebec has some say in a point in the appointments over federal judges in its area

00:33:10.080 and alberta should too the problem is quebec got that without a constitutional amendment

00:33:14.940 quebec got that uh because they're quebec they're special uh they get a say over uh supreme court

00:33:22.640 justices that are appointed for the three Quebec seats. Quebec actually kind of gets a de facto

00:33:27.900 veto over even Alberta's seat on the on the Supreme Court because they have to be bilingual now and

00:33:33.020 there's really not many fully bilingual Albertans. It's a very very small number because there's

00:33:40.880 really no functional reason to outside of like a couple small communities like maybe like

00:33:46.100 Wacklebish and stuff in the in the northern part of Alberta other than some very small communities

00:33:51.580 there's not a lot of french mother tongue speakers in alberta and there's no practical reason to

00:33:56.520 really be learning french growing up in alberta unless your parents want you to be a supreme

00:34:01.320 court justice or the prime minister like so there's that's literally there's nine supreme

00:34:06.540 court justices in the country one of which sometimes goes to alberta so one and then

00:34:12.440 prime minister so like it's a pretty there's like two jobs two job openings where you got to speak

00:34:18.620 French. Or unless you want to move to Ottawa and be a bureaucrat or something. It's just in terms

00:34:24.500 of the effort we put into our kids' education, we just don't put a ton into making them fluently

00:34:30.200 and permanently violating you because it doesn't make any economic sense. You're way more likely

00:34:35.360 to run into someone who speaks Punjab in Alberta than someone who speaks French. You're way more

00:34:40.940 likely to run into someone who speaks Mandarin or Cantonese than someone who speaks French.

00:34:45.980 So anyway, I've got to get, it's kind of a, I'm getting off track here, but Quebec gets 0.99

00:34:52.940 a big say over the judges, and they even kind of get an indirect say on the judges from

00:34:57.740 our part of the country.

00:34:59.600 So what Daniel Smith is asking for here is reasonable, and I do think most provinces

00:35:03.960 probably would like this power, that our appellate courts, you know, court of king's bench, things

00:35:12.560 like that uh that the provinces um uh are able to select those justices that makes good sense

00:35:20.200 this is good this is a good constitutional reform but i don't think it goes anywhere likely because

00:35:26.740 quebec more or less already gets this without a constitutional amendment just because they're 0.99

00:35:32.320 quebec and quebec will not agree to amend the constitution for things we want unless they get

00:35:38.360 all the other things they want and then we're into the big grab bag of issues like meech lake

00:35:42.340 in Charlottetown, where they're going to ask for things that we can't possibly give them.

00:35:48.100 Second question. Do you support the government of Alberta working with the governments of other

00:35:52.740 willing provinces to amend the Canadian constitution to abolish the unelected federal

00:35:57.180 Senate? Okay. Again, you're going to run into the same kind of political issue around it. Quebec is

00:36:04.380 not going to allow this, because even if Quebec wanted to get rid of the Senate, they won't agree

00:36:10.160 to get rid of the Senate on just a one-off issue here because they're going to want all their 0.99

00:36:14.700 language and cultural issues put in and separate status, asymmetrical federalism. They want all

00:36:21.620 of that enshrined in the Senate a la Meach Lake and Charlottetown. That's what they want. And

00:36:26.980 they're not going to agree to give us anything unless they get that. And we can't give them

00:36:30.680 those things because those things create an even less fair federation. Also, I'm not sure we want

00:36:38.560 no senate um i mean would no senate be better than the current senate yes it would the current senate

00:36:46.460 is grossly unfair it's appointed by the prime minister so most of the time it's just appointed

00:36:51.860 by liberals without any real democratic mandate from alberta so even alberta senators quote unquote

00:36:58.300 are not they're not even appointed by someone who has the backing of alberta in most cases

00:37:04.520 And the numbers in the Senate are crazy. Roughly a quarter of the seats are for Ontario. Roughly a quarter are for Quebec. And, you know, the territories, I think, get one each or something. And then things get completely screwy. Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan, I think we get six each.

00:37:27.820 Alberta alone has roughly three times the population of all four Atlantic provinces.

00:37:34.380 Roughly three times the population of all four of the Atlantic provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick.

00:37:43.420 New Brunswick alone has nearly twice the senators of just Alberta.

00:37:51.820 New Brunswick alone has nearly twice the senators of Alberta.

00:37:55.920 But Alberta has three times the population of all four of those provinces.

00:38:01.040 And that's set in stone for all time.

00:38:03.220 It doesn't change based on populations of a province going up or down.

00:38:07.300 It's just set in stone for all time.

00:38:09.540 So the current Senate is practically medieval in the way it's designed.

00:38:15.980 It wildly discriminates against the Western provinces.

00:38:19.560 Wildly.

00:38:20.980 So would no Senate be better? Yes. But here's the thing. There is no functional federation

00:38:28.620 in the democratic world that doesn't have a balanced upper legislative chamber of some kind.

00:38:36.820 So the U.S. Senate, the German Bundesrat, the Australian Senate, you know, we're talking

00:38:44.760 democratic countries that are also federations. Britain is evolving, the United Kingdom is

00:38:49.760 evolving into a quasi-federation. And so its House of Lords is probably going to need a shake

00:38:55.140 up at some time too. But among actual federations in the democratic world, every single one has a

00:39:02.460 functional upper house of some kind that represents the subnational units. In the United States,

00:39:10.400 it's very simple. Every state has two senators, and that's it. Those senators used to be actually

00:39:16.140 appointed by the state governments until roughly the turn of the 20th century, then they became

00:39:19.740 directly elected. I actually think that was a mistake, because the idea was to integrate the

00:39:26.140 state governments with the federal government, make them coordinate with each other. In Germany,

00:39:30.700 the Bundesrat, that's the upper house of the German parliament, they don't all have an equal 0.95

00:39:38.880 number, but the smaller states, small, small ones like Saarland, have more, let's call them

00:39:45.300 call them senators for shorthand here, they have more than their population would normally

00:39:49.440 account for, and bigger ones would have less. But the bigger states, you know, like Nordrhein-Westfalen

00:39:54.560 will have more senators than Saarland, but not as much as of a straight representation by population

00:40:01.660 the way it is in their lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. So that's another way. And those

00:40:07.820 senators are directly appointed by the state lander governments. So when there's a state election in

00:40:12.700 Germany, the delegation to their Senate, the Bundesrat, it turns over. And so you've got

00:40:18.900 direct collaboration from the state governments into the federal government. There's different

00:40:23.000 ways of doing it, but they've all got some version of having an upper house representing

00:40:28.780 the subnational units or subnational governments, and gives some greater representation to the

00:40:34.720 smaller provinces, the smaller states, the smaller lander. If Canada got rid of the Senate, we would

00:40:40.400 be the only democratic federation on the planet that i'm aware of that has no upper house and

00:40:47.300 it's an important function otherwise the big the big provinces or the big states say ontario

00:40:52.960 california new york in order to invest fallen they would too easily dominate the smaller ones

00:40:59.540 this is a protection for the smaller and even the mid-size sub-national units so i don't like the

00:41:05.160 idea of having no senate but i mean if you gave me a straight up or down question between

00:41:09.120 uh no senate and the current senate i i we'd have to pick no senate the current senate is

00:41:16.480 under we're a fairly big province in canada not as big as ontario quebec but we're fairly big

00:41:23.140 but we have less say than even than the big ones and we have less say than the really small ones

00:41:28.280 so it makes no sense so i don't know uh smith has put forward the position i think it was first

00:41:36.020 famously put forward by Brad Wall when he was the Premier of Saskatchewan, just getting rid of the

00:41:39.680 Senate. I'm not sure I like this one. Again, if it's just a binary decision between current status

00:41:45.200 quo Senate and no Senate, I take no Senate. But I don't think you can have a functional federation

00:41:50.880 without some kind of functional and legitimate upper house of Parliament. All right, next question.

00:41:58.340 Do you support the Alberta government working with the governments of other willing provinces

00:42:01.880 to amend the Canadian constitution to allow provinces to opt out of federal programs that

00:42:06.060 intrude on provincial jurisdiction, such as health, education, and social services without a province

00:42:11.780 losing any of the associated federal funding for use in its social programs. That's kind of

00:42:20.660 something, like that's something that Quebec has actually wanted for itself, not necessarily for

00:42:26.700 other provinces. But Quebec doesn't really care if other provinces have it or not. You know,

00:42:31.280 The dynamics have been that they demand it for themselves.

00:42:34.380 That is something you probably would get the backing of Quebec on.

00:42:37.100 But, again, they generally will not open the door to the Constitution at all unless they get their grab bag of sovereigntist, Quebecois, nationalist issues.

00:42:47.620 They're not going to give you anything unless they get those things.

00:42:49.800 But this is an item Quebec wants.

00:42:53.140 My problem is that the provinces should lose the associated federal funding.

00:42:59.480 The federal government should have no role at all in funding health care. It should have no role at all in funding social services because these are areas of provincial jurisdiction.

00:43:10.580 They are illegitimately involved in funding health care and social services. That is the jurisdiction of the provinces.

00:43:19.900 The federal government's been allowed to weasel its way in by funding these things on a provincial level.

00:43:29.820 And then, oh, can you let Dave know?

00:43:36.000 We've got a 10 o'clock, Dave.

00:43:36.720 We've got to move that back.

00:43:40.020 They're able to then attach strings to the funding that's involved.

00:43:43.580 Well, there just should be no funding, period.

00:43:45.440 Because if Ottawa is funding something, it should be allowed to attach strings to it.

00:43:48.360 So the answer is to not allow them to fund it. But I get, you know, some of the poorer provinces, Quebec, Atlantic provinces, Manitoba, they don't want to lose the funding that comes along with it.

00:44:02.680 So I don't know. I get where she's going on that one. And you know what? This would be better than the status quo.

00:44:09.140 So I don't want to make the perfect, good the enemy of the perfect, or perfect the enemy of the good. It would be a significant improvement on the status quo. But one of the reasons for this is so that we subsidize other provinces less. That should be something we want. It's just obviously not something most other provinces are going to agree to.

00:44:31.900 And the last constitutional question, do you support the government of Alberta working with other willing provinces to amend the Canadian constitution to better protect provincial rights from federal interference by giving provinces, giving a province's laws dealing with provincial or shared areas of constitutional jurisdiction priority over federal laws when the province's laws and the federal laws conflict?

00:44:55.800 i gotta give that one more thought but that one strikes me as potentially negative

00:45:03.540 and negative in a alberta way in particular um you know a lot of critics of you know alberta

00:45:14.240 sovereignty uh and you know sovereignty not being just full independence but people you know

00:45:19.140 daniel smith says a sovereign alberta within a united kingdom a lot of critics of that uh you

00:45:24.740 you know, pro-Ottawa types, you know, they don't understand, you know, when they say,

00:45:29.440 well, Alberta's demanding that, you know, a pipeline should go through BC over BC's wishes. 0.61

00:45:37.100 The idea isn't that, the idea is division of powers, not that the provinces should have

00:45:43.040 unlimited power. The idea is about clear delineation and separation of powers and

00:45:49.840 interprovincial infrastructure, you know, infrastructure that crosses provincial boundaries

00:45:55.220 is supposed to be a federal national jurisdiction. So, you know, perhaps I'm trying to read this

00:46:04.140 charitably. I'm trying to read it charitably, but I could see areas where this would be

00:46:11.080 in our favor, but I can see areas like, say, pipelines where this would not be good,

00:46:15.680 where this would say, okay, well, BC's got some jurisdiction on this and Ottawa's got some

00:46:21.980 jurisdiction on this. And so BC or Quebec, they just get to veto a pipeline.

00:46:28.980 Okay. You know, if someone's reading this differently than me, you know, put it in the

00:46:33.560 comments or call in. I want to hear it out. I could go both ways on this, but the way I'm

00:46:41.040 reading this one right now, I'm not sure it's good for a functioning federation.

00:46:45.680 You know, the idea, a good federation should have maximum powers as low as possible, as close to the people as possible at the subnational and at the local levels.

00:46:58.420 And those subnational units delegate powers to higher levels of government, say the federal government, where cooperation among jurisdictions is required.

00:47:09.220 Things like national defense, things like foreign policy, infrastructure that crosses boundaries, currency, that kind of thing.

00:47:21.200 Those are the kind of things that we want delegated to the so-called higher levels of government.

00:47:27.840 So I see this proposal as potentially problematic.

00:47:32.680 I'm going to have to suss it out a bit more.

00:47:34.240 I'm not saying it's not a hard no, but that one's a soft no right now.

00:47:39.900 I'm not sure.

00:47:42.000 On some things, it should be pretty clear.

00:47:44.420 Should Ottawa be allowed to ban paper straws in Alberta?

00:47:47.660 What possible national benefit does that serve?

00:47:52.660 You know, why does every province have to have paper, I should say ban plastic straws, sorry.

00:47:58.020 Why does every province have to have no good straws?

00:48:00.560 Why does every province have to have paper straws? 0.94

00:48:04.240 There's no good reason I can think of why all 10 provinces and all three territories have to have the exact same law on straws.

00:48:13.500 That's an area where, obviously, the subnational units should win out. 1.00

00:48:17.700 There's no national interest in banning old-fashioned, great plastic straws.

00:48:24.700 Okay. But, you know, infrastructure crossing provincial boundaries, pipelines, power lines, railroads, highways, canals, these kinds of things, that is a clear area of national interest.

00:48:43.300 And you can quibble about it if an individual project is a good thing or a bad thing. That's circumstantial.

00:48:49.100 That's something that should be federal.

00:48:50.380 So, I don't know.

00:48:52.460 I think I appreciate the spirit of where that referendum question is coming from,

00:48:57.340 but I think it's got to be sussed out a bit more.

00:48:59.740 It's got to be sussed out a bit more.

00:49:01.920 Okay.

00:49:05.000 At the bottom, at the end of it all, though, you know,

00:49:07.600 four of those five constitutional referendum questions

00:49:10.380 that the Premier is going to put to Albertans in the fall,

00:49:14.480 I'm a pretty hard yes on.

00:49:16.540 three of the five I'm a hard yes on

00:49:18.900 one I'm a soft yes, another I'm a soft no

00:49:21.480 but here's the thing

00:49:24.460 we're going to get ignored again

00:49:27.180 because we just did this a couple of years ago

00:49:29.540 do you remember when we had this referendum on equalization

00:49:32.440 that we were going to use

00:49:34.040 the Clarity Act ruling around Quebec's secession

00:49:37.740 that says that if a province has a referendum

00:49:41.680 and achieves a clear majority on a clear question

00:49:43.640 of constitutional importance

00:49:44.740 that the federal government and other provinces are constitutionally obliged to negotiate in good

00:49:48.660 faith on that question. Doesn't mean they have to agree, but it means they have to negotiate in good

00:49:52.580 faith. Alberta had a referendum on equalization, and a big majority voted to abolish it from the

00:49:59.020 Constitution. And what happened next? Can we play crickets? Do you have a cricket? You have crickets

00:50:06.380 on the soundboard can we play crickets i don't know um no oh oh i wouldn't set up i didn't warn

00:50:14.740 him to do it just just flying by the seat of my pants here it was crickets um now i guess the

00:50:20.800 fair uh the premier at the time jesus kenny had lost all political capital his premiership had

00:50:26.100 large was in the process of collapsing uh over his actions during covid over his failure to press

00:50:32.480 Ottawa harder on a lot of issues, so

00:50:34.520 he didn't really have a lot of political capital to go

00:50:36.520 with. But he nonetheless sent

00:50:38.660 a letter to Ottawa saying Albertans

00:50:40.620 have voted to abolish

00:50:42.300 equalization, and let's talk.

00:50:44.540 I don't think he even got a...

00:50:48.000 Oh! 0.60

00:50:49.060 We could do crickets.

00:50:51.440 I don't hear crickets.

00:50:53.460 Oh, there was a call.

00:50:54.520 Oh, his call.

00:50:56.500 Oh, okay, sorry, I missed the call.

00:50:58.560 Alright, sorry, if you're calling in, you can call back here.

00:51:00.580 Sorry, I thought we figured crickets on the soundboard.

00:51:03.160 Sorry.

00:51:04.940 We'll be set up for next time.

00:51:06.320 I love crickets.

00:51:07.920 Nothing happened.

00:51:10.180 I mean, if Quebec holds a referendum on a constitutional question, you better believe everyone's coming to the table and we're treating Quebec very politely and nicely and asking them to, you know, maybe negotiate down what they're asking for.

00:51:23.960 But Alberta did it. 0.90

00:51:25.460 Big majority voted to scrap it from the Constitution.

00:51:28.780 And it was nothing.

00:51:30.000 It was crickets. We didn't even get a letter back from Ottawa. They didn't even tell us to pound sand. They just didn't answer the door. We rang the doorbell and no one came. We heard the party inside. We just weren't invited in. They didn't even open the door. I'm not even sure they peered through the window to see who was there.

00:51:46.020 so my concern is we're going to hold this these referendum questions and we're going to get

00:51:51.980 ignored um that's not a reason necessarily to not hold it though i've always said you know like when

00:52:01.400 i was in the alberta legislature i was i was the first elected member of the alberta legislature

00:52:06.300 since 1982 who openly supported alberta holding a referendum on independence uh maybe you kids

00:52:14.020 weren't ready for that. Maybe you guys weren't ready for that, but your kids are going to love

00:52:18.400 it. It was maybe ahead of its time. But I felt at that time that Alberta needed to start moving in

00:52:25.220 the direction of independence. But, you know, some people thought it was too soft, the policy

00:52:31.020 because the policy was called equality or independence. Because some of the more hardcore

00:52:37.040 of you are not going to like to hear this, but this is the reality. A majority of Albertans

00:52:41.560 will never vote for independence unless they believe that Alberta has exhausted all other

00:52:48.380 attempts at good faith negotiation for equality and fairness in Canada first. They're just not

00:52:55.560 going to be prepared to pull the trigger on a admittedly pretty radical idea of becoming

00:53:03.020 their own sovereign and independent country unless they are confident that we have tried

00:53:12.140 everything else first. Similarly, you know, the American founding fathers in the Continental

00:53:16.640 Congress, they sent the, the American Revolution was shooting for a year before they declared

00:53:23.840 independence. They were literally fighting a war for a year against the British Empire

00:53:28.700 for a whole year before they declared independence. And before they declared independence,

00:53:32.680 they sent the olive branch petition to the king and then the the king responded uh go to hell i'm 0.96

00:53:40.520 gonna hang you all for treason but they they reached out to the king for redress saying like 0.97

00:53:45.000 we're your loyal subjects we want to stay a part of mother england the british empire uh we love 0.91

00:53:51.640 britain we just want to be treated fairly we want representation with taxation i mean see the seats

00:53:57.240 in parliament or that the 13 colonial legislatures have more power than they currently do and can't

00:54:04.520 be overridden by parliament and the king. They sent a very reasonable proposal to the king

00:54:10.280 called the olive branch petition, extending an olive branch of peace to the king. And it was

00:54:16.440 the king's response saying, to hell with you all, I'm going to hang you all for treason. 0.99

00:54:20.920 And then the Continental Congress voted with a hook and crook unanimously for independence. 0.99

00:54:29.080 It's a very different circumstance in Alberta where no one's shooting each other.

00:54:33.700 No one's talking anything that crazy.

00:54:36.380 But I think the principle remains that a majority of Albertans will not vote for independence unless they believe that every possible measure that can be taken to make it work in Canada first has been done has been done.

00:54:57.180 If we don't do that, you know, the moderates who are maybe sympathetic to independence and angry and have grievances with the federal government or other parts of Canada, they're not going to vote for it unless they understand that.

00:55:12.140 And yes, I'm probably in the chats here.

00:55:14.700 We're going to get people saying, hey, we've been trying forever.

00:55:16.900 We had the Reform Party.

00:55:18.840 We had Social Credit.

00:55:19.920 We had the Reform Party.

00:55:21.200 We had the Canadian Alliance.

00:55:22.440 um you know we've tried all of these things and they've always ignored us you're right and i think

00:55:29.500 it's a practically zero percent chance that we get major constitutional reform on the senate on

00:55:36.980 dividing federal provincial jurisdiction on on equalization i think the chances of that are

00:55:41.940 damn near zero percent it's not happening as long as quebec holds a veto over the constitution in

00:55:48.480 this country it's not happening because what we would have to do to get those things would be 0.97

00:55:52.640 giving up even more so uh yeah those of you and i got one guy saying we have done that already

00:55:58.980 i agree we have but here's the problem uh well i'm not gen z here but you know i've studied

00:56:08.920 history i i know the history of this you know my family were in the reform party i grew up knowing

00:56:13.780 about this stuff you know uh you know alberta cora here over 100 years of being treated unjustly 1.00

00:56:21.480 isn't enough for albertans uh donna donovan kelly you know we've already done that

00:56:29.740 um majority of the 30 percent devoted were obviously ndp voters i'm not sure what that is

00:56:36.760 but i mean you know i totally expect this we've tried it all before and we've gotten nowhere you

00:56:42.840 You know, remember Preston Manning and the Reform Party?

00:56:45.080 That was started in 1987.

00:56:47.380 We've tried this forever.

00:56:48.520 We've gotten almost nowhere.

00:56:51.400 I agree.

00:56:53.260 But there's a lot of people who do not have that institutional memory right now,

00:56:57.780 particularly younger people who get to vote.

00:57:00.320 They don't remember Preston Manning.

00:57:01.980 The Reform Party started when I was two years old.

00:57:04.920 I know this stuff because, you know, I've been a political junkie.

00:57:08.700 I studied history.

00:57:10.180 I studied politics.

00:57:12.440 I know this stuff, and I grew up with a lot of it, but I was still a little kid.

00:57:18.600 So older people might remember this, but a lot of younger people don't.

00:57:23.780 And even older people, they've maybe, they've forgotten this.

00:57:26.980 So, yeah, I agree.

00:57:28.440 You know, putting forward reasonable proposals for constitutional reform to make things work in Canada is probably a non-starter, just like the equalization referendum.

00:57:37.620 It's going to go nowhere.

00:57:39.020 But I think there is value in at least letting the rest of Canada say no.

00:57:46.220 And who knows? I hope I'm wrong.

00:57:49.320 I've always wanted Canada to work.

00:57:51.640 I grew up as a Canadian nationalist.

00:57:54.240 I grew up loving Canada, believing it was the greatest country in the world.

00:57:59.320 And, you know, for a time, it probably was.

00:58:02.120 Although everybody thinks the country is the greatest, at least in the West.

00:58:06.400 It was a great country.

00:58:07.580 But that country is lost now. And I don't think it's capable of reforming itself. I think it's probably past the point of no return at this point.

00:58:20.680 I hope they would say yes. I don't think they will. I think the chances are extraordinarily small.

00:58:27.720 But I think we owe it to our own history, our own heritage, and our institutions to try.

00:58:36.180 Just try.

00:58:37.700 It's, you know, think of it as a marriage is at a total dead end road.

00:58:42.140 You got to at least go to counseling once.

00:58:43.880 You got to sit down with a counselor once before the courts will let you go to the courthouse and get your divorce. 1.00

00:58:49.960 They're going to require you to sit down with a counselor at least once, look each other in the eyes and say, I still hate you.

00:58:58.140 You know, you got to do that.

00:58:59.760 And who knows?

00:59:01.860 Maybe we fall in love again.

00:59:04.300 Probably not.

00:59:06.000 But at the very least, at a minimum, even if those of you say there's a zero percent chance, I think it is important that we do this, if nothing else,

00:59:17.640 so that your fellow Albertans know

00:59:20.180 that the rest of Canada has no interest

00:59:22.440 in fixing the Constitution, fixing the country.

00:59:25.560 Give them the chance to say no.

00:59:28.500 And who knows?

00:59:29.780 Maybe I'm naive.

00:59:32.280 But I think there's probably a 1% chance they say yes.

00:59:35.300 And I hope it's a lot more than 1%. 0.97

00:59:37.240 But I think it's about 1%.

00:59:38.860 They're just not going to do it.

00:59:41.120 And I hope I'm wrong.

00:59:41.940 So,

00:59:42.540 So, yeah, I mean, okay, Missy Forever says the referendum will prove that the Constitution doesn't work because they won't do anything.

00:59:58.460 I'm not sure that proves the Constitution doesn't work, but it might prove that federal reform doesn't work because they are very likely to do nothing.

01:00:07.480 People on both sides are going to say, well, the rest of the country will do nothing.

01:00:09.840 And, you know, the federalists who say, well, why are we holding these referendums?

01:00:13.100 They're going to do nothing.

01:00:14.180 Well, you're kind of proving our point. 0.99

01:00:15.880 The rest of the country doesn't give a shit. 0.99

01:00:18.440 You're kind of making that point. 0.99

01:00:21.260 So let the rest of Canada say no.

01:00:23.860 We have to say yes to compromise ourselves.

01:00:27.760 We have to say yes to compromise.

01:00:29.440 We have to say yes to good faith negotiations.

01:00:32.240 And then we see what they have to say.

01:00:34.120 It's very likely going to be no.

01:00:36.720 Very likely going to be no.

01:00:38.200 But give them the chance to say no.

01:00:39.340 And if they say no, then, you know, during the independence referendum campaign, when you go knock on a door and someone says, hey, well, I want to work it out, you know, you find someone who's not a elbows up forever Canada guy, you know, people, but you find someone who's a bit more moderate in the middle and they say, you know, yeah, I get independence, but I'm not there yet.

01:01:00.740 But I really think we should, I really think, you know, we got to make Canada work.

01:01:09.460 Well, you could talk about the history of the Reform Party and the Wild Rose and all of these things till you're blue in the face.

01:01:19.460 But chances are most normal people haven't experienced that.

01:01:22.720 Most people haven't opened up the history books and, you know, remembered Preston Manning railing about a Tripoli Senate in a church basement in 1988, you know.

01:01:34.140 They're just not going to remember that.

01:01:36.360 They have to know it for themselves.

01:01:38.160 So at least to be able to look them in the eyes and say, hey, you probably voted to reform the Constitution, and these guys said no.

01:01:46.100 So at a minimum, I think it strengthens the hands of an independence campaign if the rest of Canada says no, after we've put forward good faith reforms to the Constitution first.

01:01:58.360 So that's me trying to be a pragmatist.

01:02:04.800 But on the logistics of this all.

01:02:06.480 So this is, I think, what?

01:02:08.680 It was nine referendum questions, is it?

01:02:11.380 Nine or ten?

01:02:12.160 Nine.

01:02:13.560 I think it's nine.

01:02:15.140 But we're probably going to have 10 referendum questions, I think, because there is that citizens initiative referendum on independence.

01:02:27.400 Can't be sure. But if I'm a betting man here, I'm betting they get the signatures to trigger an independence campaign, a referendum campaign, which would also be held probably, I think, at the same time.

01:02:39.120 October 19th, October 19th.

01:02:44.280 how is this going to work?

01:02:46.880 So like nine referendum questions minimum on the same day,

01:02:51.060 it's going to feel a little bit like California.

01:02:54.480 California is crazy.

01:02:55.280 They'll vote on like,

01:02:56.520 should we build this overpass on this particular highway or,

01:02:59.460 or this,

01:03:00.380 you know,

01:03:00.980 LRT line.

01:03:02.040 It's a bit crazy how much they vote on things.

01:03:03.940 Again,

01:03:04.140 I think there's a,

01:03:05.300 there is definitely a role for direct democracy.

01:03:07.020 I don't think it's for every little issue there is,

01:03:09.980 but that's California.

01:03:11.520 We're going to have nine.

01:03:13.180 Where does the independence referendum fit in on that?

01:03:17.580 Does it get held the same day and it's just one of 10 options?

01:03:23.780 If so, that would seem an effort to help that referendum probably lose.

01:03:31.260 I know people can reasonably take both sides of this argument.

01:03:34.580 I know the federalist side, they're going to say,

01:03:38.060 these nine referendum questions are designed to help an independence referendum win.

01:03:42.560 And I've seen some of that from the usual crowd on X. I don't think so. I think it hurts it. Because then it, you know, a bunch of people who would otherwise vote for independence, they can say, well, I'm not all the way there. I'll vote for these more moderate options of we're going to take control of immigration and we're going to demand constitutional reform.

01:04:03.280 I see it as weakening their hand.

01:04:07.480 So we don't know the timing because the petition has not been successful in getting enough signatures.

01:04:12.040 That's ongoing.

01:04:15.140 I think the way this should work is that if the Premier says we're going to have this, we're going to vote on these nine items October 19th.

01:04:27.280 um i think if we have a successful petition drive for a referendum on independence which

01:04:36.120 again i think they're very very likely to get the signatures for that it should be scheduled for

01:04:41.840 perhaps a month afterwards you know i don't know what day of the week it is but you know roughly

01:04:46.880 like november 19th as long as it's not a weekend or a holiday or something um november 19th or

01:04:53.520 early in the new year, something like that. It should be after. So you give Albertans a chance

01:04:59.420 to vote on these questions here, immigration reform, etc. Okay. And then you've got the

01:05:05.320 constitutional questions. You've got to give then a little bit of time, a reasonable amount of time,

01:05:12.080 so maybe more than a month. You also don't want to do it during Christmas. But you have to give

01:05:17.680 the other provinces in the federal government time to consider these questions? To consider,

01:05:23.900 okay, Alberta says we want to get rid of the Senate. We want the provinces to appoint

01:05:29.160 their appellate court judges for their own provinces. We want to allow a clearer separation

01:05:38.860 of powers on things like health care, social policy, and we want the provincial legislation

01:05:45.200 to trump federal legislation where there's shared jurisdiction okay uh and then you allow the other

01:05:51.960 provinces and the federal government time to consider it and if they ignore it or they say no

01:05:56.480 well then albertans can be informed by that reaction when they go a month two three months

01:06:03.880 later to vote on the potential independence question they should not be voting on the same

01:06:09.020 day? Because these are very big things. Why would you vote? Because if people voted for

01:06:15.640 independents, I know it's a minority opinion right now. We got a poll coming out today.

01:06:18.820 It's in the mid-30s. It's around 34%, 34, 35. I think it gets up to 38%. We had a poll.

01:06:29.020 We polled Albertans, a pretty big sample size, 1,500 people. We asked if the pipeline MOU deal

01:06:36.520 between Daniel Smith and Mark Carney falls through,

01:06:38.620 how do you vote on independence?

01:06:40.500 I could be getting this wrong, but off the top of my mind,

01:06:42.320 I think it gets near 38%.

01:06:44.040 That's, you know, that's not striking distance,

01:06:47.860 but that's getting into competitive territory

01:06:50.320 for a referendum.

01:06:52.380 But how would, why would you be voting

01:06:55.200 on constitutional reforms at the same time?

01:06:58.400 Proposals for constitutional reforms,

01:07:00.300 and you have no idea how the rest of the country

01:07:02.280 is going to react to them.

01:07:03.580 Why would you be voting on those

01:07:05.000 on the exact same day as independence like that's very conflicting that's sending very conflicting

01:07:12.960 messages uh also you know if say the reform proposals pass but the independence one fails

01:07:19.600 then you've you've completely wasted all of your leverage for actually negotiating with the other

01:07:23.460 provinces so i think what make a lot more sense is that you know the nine questions put forward

01:07:29.040 by premier smith those get voted on october 19th if we're actually going to vote on all these things

01:07:34.400 And, you know, as I've already said, I'm not sure they should all be referendum questions. Some of them should just be enacted as policy immediately. But we're going to vote on these things October 19th. And then we give, you know, say three months from October 19th. So say, you know, January 19th, roughly, as long as it's not a weekend or something, something like January 19th, roughly, 2027.

01:07:53.700 then we can vote on the Citizens Initiative referendum on independence.

01:08:01.300 And if in those three months the rest of Canada has found Jesus

01:08:06.620 and we reform the Constitution, we either get rid of the Senate

01:08:11.540 or we reform the Senate into something democratic,

01:08:14.600 something with more fair representation to acknowledge

01:08:20.540 that the country's population among provinces has changed a bit since 1905

01:08:27.380 when Alberta and Saskatchewan were admitted as provinces

01:08:29.920 and assigned our senators and never changed since.

01:08:32.860 But, you know, we reform the Senate, we reform area, you know,

01:08:38.140 the Constitution around areas of shared jurisdiction, appointment of judges.

01:08:40.960 You know, we get some significant constitutional reform in Canada.

01:08:46.540 I'll vote against independence. 0.62

01:08:47.920 i mean yeah if we could fix this place that's the best i want my canada back

01:08:56.980 i want my canada back i don't think i'm gonna get it back i think it's gone 0.98

01:09:01.660 but if we can get our canada back shit i'll vote against independence 0.97

01:09:07.580 but we're probably not gonna get it i don't know the gong went off in the background something 0.99

01:09:13.300 big up in the nose. I don't know. Jackson's chuckling here. Look, I'm going to scratch

01:09:18.140 his beard, his mustache. No, I can't do it. Anyway, pick it on him. We used to have David

01:09:27.300 Veitsynik sitting here, but we caught him eating noodles once live on air, and we blew up a big 0.99

01:09:32.280 picture of him savagely eating noodles, and he's been ashamed of it ever since, so he moved his

01:09:36.940 seat. No one likes to sit there. That's the chair. Anyway, it'd be crazy to have the

01:09:47.320 referendums all on the same day. Having the referendum for these nine, especially the

01:09:53.160 four constitutional questions from Danielle Smith, along with five domestic immigration

01:09:58.080 questions, on the same day as the independence question, makes no sense. That is a bad, bad,

01:10:04.420 bad idea. Have these nine questions. You know, the first five, you should actually just make

01:10:09.260 policy and do it. We shouldn't even have a referendum on that. Let opponents of it trigger

01:10:13.820 an initiative vote if they want to. But either way, have at the minimum the constitutional

01:10:19.680 questions that Premier Smith is proposing. Have those on October 19th. Three months later in

01:10:26.700 January, then we can have the Citizens Initiative vote on independence. And there's some flexibility

01:10:32.860 on the part of the government to schedule when exactly that's going to be. I think that makes

01:10:36.840 sense. That way, when Albertans go to likely vote on independence, they're going in with their eyes

01:10:42.040 wide open. We have voted on a series of constitutional reforms that I'm not even thrilled

01:10:48.360 about, but they're compromises. They're compromises. These are very watered down compromises,

01:10:55.780 but might be good enough. We put that forward and we see the reaction. And so when Albertans go

01:11:02.200 to vote on independence, they're not doing it the same day wondering how the rest of the country

01:11:05.920 would react to these constitutional amending proposals. When they go to vote on independence,

01:11:11.540 they know how Ontario, Quebec, you know, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Ottawa, we know

01:11:18.520 how they have responded. We know if they have said, yes, these are reasonable proposals and

01:11:24.460 we're willing to sit down and negotiate in good faith. Or if they've said pound sand,

01:11:28.940 or if they've just ignored us, again, as they did on the equalization vote.

01:11:36.540 I think Albertans would then make a much more informed decision.

01:11:39.900 And frankly, if the rest of the country has told us to pounce and or ignore it,

01:11:44.060 it probably strengthens the hand of the independence campaign

01:11:50.240 because the rest of the country will have rejected negotiation at that point.

01:11:55.020 It was the old policy I ran on.

01:11:57.660 it was not very successful with in 2019 equality or independence because i know some of you don't

01:12:03.520 want to hear this just independence without making it very clear and real and visceral

01:12:09.760 for people in the middle that equality has with other provinces has to be achieved first 0.99

01:12:14.800 they're not going to vote for independence we're you're you're at uh oh we okay yeah we're gonna

01:12:20.700 go to a call we got a call now let's uh patch in

01:12:22.980 hello derek hello who am i talking to uh actually you're touching on exactly my name's uh

01:12:35.240 jeffy from gp sorry what's your name i didn't hear you clearly

01:12:38.100 jeffy from gp jeffy from gp how you doing jeffy

01:12:43.680 good thanks uh great show love the call in format um keep it up i missed cory yesterday but i'll

01:12:52.320 I'll try and get off work to call into him as well.

01:12:56.380 Oh, thank you.

01:12:56.740 What I'm calling about is actually what you're talking about right now,

01:13:00.380 so you've already touched on it,

01:13:01.520 is a lot of people are calling for the referendum now, now, now.

01:13:04.960 And it can't be now.

01:13:06.520 People need to understand that.

01:13:09.340 As much as they want it to happen, we're not there yet, right?

01:13:14.480 We have a lot of the support for it, but we need to campaign for it.

01:13:21.800 so i just wanted to uh yeah well yeah it's exactly that look i i know i know the independence crowd

01:13:29.720 i've rolled with these people a long time and i get it you know they want it they they just want

01:13:37.600 it so bad they want to do it now but you know growing up our parents teach us about uh delayed

01:13:43.320 gratification you know do you want do you want half a cookie now or do you want a full cookie

01:13:47.880 later you know after you do your chores and we don't even get if we just have a vote we you know

01:13:54.340 we get to blow off this steam and then we lose did how much it's good it would suck to lose

01:13:59.500 i mean even if we do everything right it's still a pretty big uphill battle you know we've you know

01:14:06.260 the polling we've got coming out today you guys can check it out at westernstandard.news

01:14:09.700 should be out anytime uh independence it's around 34 on a generic question uh with undecideds

01:14:16.620 removed and i think as i said i think it gets up to around 38 ish 38 give or take uh if the pipeline

01:14:24.260 mou between smith and carney falls through okay that's a respectable number that's a big number

01:14:29.580 but guess what it's not the 51 you need it's not the 51 you need exactly and we're not quebec we're

01:14:36.300 not gonna get to do this over and over you know like we got one shot so if we're gonna do it

01:14:40.800 like hold a referendum right now why just just to feel good about it i mean that's that's crazy

01:14:47.020 let's take the time uh try to achieve reform in canada which i don't think is really possible but

01:14:52.560 at least make a good faith attempt and maybe we're successful and at the minimum everybody else

01:14:58.960 could see that we've been rejected with good faith proposals and then you'll have a better

01:15:02.560 chance at your referendum you know exactly and the more we get uh uh declined from wishes and

01:15:13.600 let's say the federal election is called within the next uh you know a couple months six months

01:15:19.260 whatever the referendum will pass after the liberals gain the majority which they will

01:15:26.540 I guess. So people just need to wait for that full cookie, as you said, in my opinion.

01:15:33.180 Slow the roll. Let's campaign. Let's canvas. Let's get as much momentum as we can.

01:15:41.020 Get as much information out there as we can. And I'll leave you with that.

01:15:45.540 But I do want to say one last thing. Good.

01:15:49.520 Everybody, get a subscription to the Western Standard and stop watching the CBT.

01:15:54.340 That's the best advice I've heard all week.

01:15:56.140 Thank you very much, Jeffy from GP.

01:16:00.100 All right.

01:16:00.680 Thank you.

01:16:01.060 Have a great day.

01:16:01.680 Thank you.

01:16:02.120 Thank you, Jeffy.

01:16:03.560 Yeah.

01:16:04.140 Well, and you know, the polls are looking pretty good for the federal liberals.

01:16:08.580 We've got one out.

01:16:09.540 Actually, we put it out last night.

01:16:11.140 We put out two poll questions last night.

01:16:12.820 We polled 1,500 people through Main Street Research, so a very big sample size for Alberta.

01:16:17.000 uh it had the liberals federal liberals pretty close on the heels of the conservatives in alberta

01:16:25.520 now uh john pull up the images from those two stories the federal and the provincial one uh

01:16:30.880 let's pull up the federal one first um i'll throw it up on the screen here i didn't believe it uh

01:16:37.400 the liberal the federal liberals have never been near tied the conservatives or previous iterations

01:16:43.100 with the alliance or reform they have never been even close to tied really uh uh since uh

01:16:51.740 since deepened baker deepened baker wiped the liberals out as a dominant prairie party in the

01:16:57.340 1950s and and the liberals have not been anywhere close to tied with the conservatives or reform

01:17:02.700 etc ever since the 1950s so i i i i talked to the pollster keto maybe i was like i i'm not buying

01:17:10.380 this one and um but the problem is the other questions we asked on say provincial voter

01:17:16.720 intention or on independence they all kind of lined up with the conventional wisdom it showed

01:17:21.300 the ucp well ahead of the ndp uh on the provincial voter intention it showed independence in the mid

01:17:27.780 30s that's that's pretty decent higher than some other polls uh but you know within the realm of

01:17:33.460 conventional wisdom so actually it's possible i want to see some other polls like just because

01:17:38.360 we paid for this poll doesn't mean it's the be all end also maybe you know maybe it's wrong but

01:17:42.700 let's scroll okay let's scroll down show this federal poll here where's the image there it is

01:17:48.000 so there's federal voter intention in alberta according to this main street poll commissioned

01:17:53.920 by western standard sample size of 1500 that's a pretty big sample size you could go bigger but

01:17:59.500 it's kind of diminishing returns at that point so i don't know if that's true uh but i i think

01:18:06.460 the impact of the liberals winning a majority government and also they're going to get the

01:18:09.760 majority government like floor crossers anyway they've already got a de facto majority i think 1.00

01:18:13.860 it's actually already baked in i think people angry at the liberals winning bringing supporters

01:18:17.760 to independence i think it's already kind of baked into the baked into the price at this point

01:18:22.180 with independent support so i think the liberals winning again winning a majority

01:18:25.700 maybe it gives a small bump but i don't think it gives a particularly big bump uh here now

01:18:31.700 Now, do you have the provincial vote numbers there?

01:18:35.640 No, that'd be a different story.

01:18:37.400 That'd be a different story.

01:18:38.560 All right.

01:18:38.900 Well, all right.

01:18:39.920 Don't worry about that for now.

01:18:42.920 So I think that's baked in.

01:18:44.380 We got a super chat.

01:18:45.480 I've never done super chats before.

01:18:47.040 Let's.

01:18:48.700 Super chat.

01:18:49.580 $20 from JP Alberta first.

01:18:51.620 If Smith was being serious and not just gaslighting Albertans,

01:18:55.220 she would hold her referendum questions on June 2nd, 2026,

01:18:59.680 including the Lukasik question.

01:19:01.080 And October should be for the independence question.

01:19:04.800 Okay.

01:19:06.620 Okay, JP, thanks for the super chat, by the way.

01:19:10.860 I've never done super chats before.

01:19:12.440 Really appreciate it.

01:19:13.440 Yeah, if you do super chats, even if you insult me, you can say anything about me.

01:19:19.420 Well, if you give a dollar, I'm not going to put an insult up.

01:19:22.280 But, you know, $20, you can insult me.

01:19:24.720 It costs $20 to make fun of me.

01:19:26.080 And I will read your comments.

01:19:27.840 It's, you can make fun of my hair, my beard, the way I talk.

01:19:32.520 You can make fun of me for money.

01:19:34.640 I could, I'll be, it's like the dunk tank at the carnival.

01:19:38.140 I'll be the guy.

01:19:40.320 I take your point.

01:19:41.540 I think you're, I think JP Alberta First is saying something pretty similar to what I'm saying,

01:19:45.780 except he's just saying to do it earlier.

01:19:49.520 That, you know, she could have her referendum questions along with Lukasik's question.

01:19:54.820 I don't think Lacan's questions coming up for a vote because he seemed to realize after he got the signatures that he doesn't actually want a referendum.

01:20:01.820 He had triggered his own independence referendum.

01:20:03.760 He's like, well, I didn't read the legislation.

01:20:07.360 So I'm not sure we're actually going to vote on that.

01:20:11.600 But anyway, so have her referendum questions.

01:20:16.080 He wants, JP Alberta First wants to do it in June and then have the independence vote in October.

01:20:22.440 um so i i we're on the same page that those questions should be held before the independence

01:20:28.620 vote i agree with that uh but i i i think you want more time for a referendum i mean independence

01:20:37.120 it's a big deal and frankly like the movement i've been in the movement and it's not as old

01:20:45.760 and well developed as it is in quebec in quebec you know they develop all these cultural institutions

01:20:50.080 around this stuff and they spent decades before they even had their first referendum you know

01:20:54.440 then another roughly 15 years before their second referendum and it's been god knows how long uh you

01:21:00.840 know 1995 they might have another referendum in the next two three one to three years who knows

01:21:06.100 um more runway is not a bad thing i know some you just you just want to start shooting you just want

01:21:13.760 to pull the trigger and vote on it now because it's going to feel good but it's not going to

01:21:19.100 feel good if you get slaughtered and having more time allows a a more thoughtful campaign it allows

01:21:26.140 people to consider this idea because guess what it is a radical idea forming your own country is a

01:21:32.460 radical idea radical you know canadians have all been taught radical equals a bad thing anything

01:21:39.600 that is not you know if you have you have three numbers one two and three canadian always picks

01:21:44.400 two they always pick what's in the middle you know canadians have been conditioned to think

01:21:48.560 that anything big, anything aspirational, anything outside the box is bad. Anything radical. Radical

01:21:54.520 equals bad. And radical often equals bad. Anywhere. But not always. We've done radical things before

01:22:01.840 that have been good. We've done radical things that are bad. But this is a radical proposal.

01:22:08.560 And it's going to take time for people to take it in. Because remember, you're talking to your

01:22:13.140 friends you know uh you know i have a beer with my buddies in my barn we've got a big alberta flag

01:22:20.100 and wild rose country mud flaps on the wall we sit around we all agree

01:22:23.940 but a lot of people don't a lot of people don't you know it's uh a lot of people need some some

01:22:34.980 convincing here and you know in the federalist circles they say well everyone i know is a

01:22:39.520 federalists they're forever canada and uh we love uh jason kenney and nahi denji and thomas

01:22:45.720 lukasik and anyone who doesn't think like that is crazy i don't know anyone who's you know not 0.92

01:22:50.040 a federalist these separatists are crazy i don't know any well guess what we have the same problem

01:22:54.820 on our side too we roll in our circles and we tend to talk with people who agree with us more often

01:23:00.800 than not there's a lot of people who've got to be one over here and so having more time especially

01:23:07.580 after a uh a series of referendum proposals where we're we albertans are being the reasonable ones

01:23:14.300 proposing amendments to the constitution compromises to make canada work let canada

01:23:20.760 stew on that let let them give them a reasonable amount of time to consider it and come back to

01:23:25.260 the table um you know that um give some time for that to happen i know some of you just want to

01:23:33.060 vote now. It's a bad idea. And I know that's always been the attitude of so many people in

01:23:37.940 the independence movement. I was in it when it was not a very popular idea at all, when it was

01:23:44.020 pretty fringe. So, you know, I don't take positions on things to be popular. I've taken

01:23:50.080 very unpopular positions before. It was not very politically advantageous to do so. But don't just

01:23:57.600 pull the trigger because it feels good and you want to do it now. Because guess what? It's going

01:24:01.820 to feel good when you get your referendum scheduled and it's going to feel like shit when you get 0.98

01:24:05.100 beaten badly you want to set yourself up as Lucien Bouchard said for winning conditions

01:24:11.000 give yourself the best chance possible that means giving a bit more time and letting this set of

01:24:16.860 referendum questions go first and give the rest of Canada the provinces and the feds a good faith

01:24:23.200 uh, period of time to negotiate reasonably. All right. All right. All right. I'm going to leave

01:24:40.660 it there. I actually have to get back to the rest of my job and try to run this shop here.

01:24:44.580 Uh, but I've enjoyed the chat this morning. Oh, geez. I got, I've been ignoring text messages from,

01:24:51.180 uh from john here uh all right okay well i know we have uh okay this oh this that's because this

01:25:03.240 was on x um uh george uh he's got a long long name here but george uh he says aren't these

01:25:10.520 referendum questions just proof that smith is completely out of touch with the feelings of

01:25:14.040 majority of albertans uh they are either that simply her way of dodging responsibility to an

01:25:20.080 legislature will be criticized by those outside of Alberta. George says Smith has federal political

01:25:26.140 ambitions. She knows that doing what needs to be done arbitrarily, as is her job, she will have

01:25:33.160 these policies thrown back at her by her eastern competitors. When she runs federally, she wants 1.00

01:25:37.920 to hide behind a referendum. If you want to say she's dodging taking a tough position by holding 1.00

01:25:46.100 these referendum questions? Maybe. You can make the argument. You can make it fairly on either

01:25:51.340 side. As I said, I don't think there should be referendum questions on these immigration things.

01:25:55.820 I think we should just do it. Do it yesterday. The constitutional questions, no, those are

01:26:02.760 rightfully put towards a referendum. I do not agree, though, that she's got any kind of

01:26:07.780 significant political, federal political ambitions, and she's trying to appease an East. 1.00

01:26:11.340 a lot of pundits get it wrong about why jason kenny is no longer premier they thought it was

01:26:17.200 because of covid covid was what pushed it over the top but ultimately it's because he always

01:26:21.780 had his peripheral vision on ottawa that he saw the premier's chair of alberta as the stepping

01:26:27.260 stone a way station on the way to the prime ministership he was going to come back to

01:26:31.780 alberta save alberta unite the parties defeat the ndp uh be popular and then once the federal

01:26:38.440 leadership the conservative party comes open he could hop over there and it was self-evident to

01:26:43.200 everyone and and it was we kind of put up with it for a bit but it became very obvious you know he

01:26:49.300 talked a bit tough for alberta but wouldn't actually do anything uh there's no way in hell

01:26:55.320 he would have allowed a citizens initiative uh referendum on independence he has made clear even

01:26:59.900 very recently he would never allow this this is just not allowed these people are hijacking the

01:27:04.100 system. They're bad people. They should go away. Shut up. No referendum for you. He had his

01:27:09.760 peripheral vision on Ottawa. And we could see that. And it became tiresome. And when we needed

01:27:15.680 someone to really fight back against Ottawa on equalization, and then during COVID, he had

01:27:22.120 nothing but words for Trudeau, really. Words and a few court interventions. But otherwise still

01:27:28.940 followed the lead of Ottawa on COVID restrictions, vaccine passports, mandates, masking, all this 0.88

01:27:38.700 crap. He followed their lead. We saw that. We don't see that from Smith. Smith is probably the least 0.95

01:27:45.760 popular politician outside of Alberta. Even a lot of conservatives, right-wing conservatives in the

01:27:53.720 East don't like her because she's Alberta first. She might not be all the way there as a full 1.00

01:27:59.600 Alberta nationalist supporting independence. She's not there. But she has been Alberta first.

01:28:06.120 Hard for Alberta sovereignty. We got the Alberta Sovereignty Act, albeit a very watered down one

01:28:10.540 from what was originally promised during the leadership campaign. But we still got it. It

01:28:14.520 was a significant action. I would have liked the original as proposed, but we still got something

01:28:18.720 good there. We got the Citizens Initiative legislation making an independence referendum

01:28:27.660 possible. You know, I really just have a hard time squaring the accusation that she's got

01:28:35.600 federal political ambitions with her actions, with her language. She would be wildly unelectable 1.00

01:28:42.720 outside of Alberta. And I like that, because I want my Alberta Premier to see the Alberta

01:28:47.960 premier's chair as the highest job the way a quebec nationalist sees being quebec premier

01:28:54.600 as more important than being canadian prime minister i want my premier i want the alberta

01:28:59.240 premier to see being alberta premier as more important than being prime minister that's the

01:29:04.520 top job and i and she gives me that she very much gives me at least me that impression um

01:29:11.160 Um, you know, I, uh, tough on her sometimes, you know, earlier in the live stream, I was

01:29:16.780 tougher on, on some things, but that's, that's, you know, I, I, you don't even have to be

01:29:22.080 that charitable to see it. 0.97

01:29:23.240 Her, her opponents, I'll say she's just crazy Alberta nationalist closet separatist, yahoo 0.93

01:29:29.720 shooting guns in the air that, you know, her opponents see this. 0.90

01:29:34.380 So people on her side should also see it for what it is.

01:29:37.500 I, I don't think that's, I don't think that's a fair accusation.

01:29:40.800 I don't think if I was her advisor and I am telling her, advising her on how she should prepare the way for a federal run, I would tell her to do the exact opposite of everything she's been doing here.

01:29:57.000 So I have to respectfully disagree with you on that one.

01:30:02.060 Okay.

01:30:04.660 I'm going to pull the plug on it there.

01:30:08.500 I want to thank you all for joining the show today.

01:30:11.480 Also, if you're not watching live, I know a lot of you will watch after the fact.

01:30:14.420 But all those of you who watch live, thank you very much for your comments, your questions, and your call-ins.

01:30:21.580 I've got to get back to my job.

01:30:23.200 That's it for today.

01:30:24.160 Thank you very much for joining.

01:30:25.340 Remember to go to westernstandard.news, click subscribe.

01:30:28.160 It's $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited access to all Western Standard content

01:30:32.400 and to support the work that we're doing here in Alberta and across the West.

01:30:36.300 Thank you very much for joining me, and God bless.

Western Standard - February 21, 2026

Smith’s Big Referendum Gambit

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