Western Standard - The Alberta independence campaign must clean itself up

00:00:00.000 Good day and

00:00:29.980 Welcome to the Corey Morgan Show.

00:00:32.200 Oh, man, what a week it's been.

00:00:34.600 A whole bunch of good and a whole bunch of bad if you're an independent supporter.

00:00:38.240 I'm kind of going to cover a little bit of both of that in my monologue that I'm going to read in a moment.

00:00:43.880 My interview is going to be a little unusual today in the sense that it had to be pre-recorded,

00:00:47.980 but it is Eric Duham of the Conservative Party of Quebec, the leader of it.

00:00:53.040 People forget there is a Conservative Party over there, and it's been making gains.

00:00:56.080 I mean, they're not looking to be winning this fall's election probably,

00:00:59.760 but they could certainly be impacting it in a big way.

00:01:02.400 So it was an interesting conversation with him,

00:01:04.860 a rational politician out of Quebec.

00:01:08.200 Otherwise, let's see some of the folks.

00:01:09.840 I see commenters already, Wayne and John.

00:01:12.680 Good to see you, John and Wayne and NB Lakes and Paradoxy.

00:01:17.220 Yeah, lots to discuss, lots to talk about and lots breaking.

00:01:21.340 But we'll get into the area, what I wanted to speak of.

00:01:25.660 As I said, it's been a really good week for the independence movement

00:01:28.500 and it's really been bad and we've got to do better but I'll explain a little of that. So

00:01:35.120 Alberta, I mean we're at a turning point in history. Mitch Sylvester and I get nothing but

00:01:40.460 good things to say about Mitch with Stay Free Alberta presented over 301,000 signatures to the

00:01:46.400 Elections Alberta office demanding a referendum be held on the word independence. The signature

00:01:51.900 collection process, it was meticulous. There's over 7,000 volunteers registered, they took training

00:01:58.100 and then demanded the identification for every signature offered to the petition.

00:02:02.520 The bar to trigger a petition for a referendum or to trigger a referendum with a petition

00:02:06.680 was set at $178,000, comfortably surpassed.

00:02:11.000 It was a remarkable accomplishment achieved during the darkest, coldest months of winter.

00:02:14.820 And anybody claiming it was an easy thing to achieve is either lying

00:02:18.340 or they've never actually petitioned before.

00:02:21.180 And that petition presentation the other day was celebratory, as it should be.

00:02:25.760 Hundreds of supporters gathered for the event and the energy was palpable.

00:02:29.360 I wish I could have made it up.

00:02:31.380 Alas, I was stuck down here.

00:02:33.020 Unfortunately, though, a dark cloud of controversy also hung in the background during that event

00:02:38.000 due to the alleged leak of voter information by David Parker's Centurion Project.

00:02:42.920 A news cycle that should have been overwhelmed with positive imagery of the independence movement

00:02:47.520 passing an important milestone was disrupted with constant chatter about laws being broken

00:02:53.280 and privacy being violated.

00:02:54.640 it hasn't crushed the movement by any means, but it was a self-inflicted setback that never should

00:03:00.880 have happened. With the petitioning finished, the independence movement must now evolve into

00:03:05.780 a campaigning phase in anticipation of a fall referendum. And this is going to be different

00:03:10.540 than the petitioning campaign. In petitioning, people who already supported independence

00:03:15.000 engaged themselves and they sought out the signatures of hundreds of thousands of Albertans

00:03:19.520 who wanted to see a referendum question on the issue. And while the process in itself surely

00:03:24.860 led to converting many to the independent side of the fence, it still left a large and mushy,

00:03:30.060 undecided middle of the population who must be won over by October 19th, and it's not going to

00:03:34.480 be easy. To begin with, this independence movement must be squeaky clean. There could be no whiffs

00:03:41.360 of corruption or misdoing, or it will sink any chance of winning the trust and support of

00:03:46.160 citizens by voting time. Perhaps the mess caused by the Centurion Project debacle is something of

00:03:51.800 a blessing as it offered this hard lesson while there's still nearly six months to recover from

00:03:56.540 it and to campaign. A mistake made by many independent supporters when the news broke

00:04:01.320 of the apparent misuse and public sharing of information from the electors list though was

00:04:05.500 to circle the wagons and try to defend it. Some tried to liken the information to that contained

00:04:10.320 in a phone book and others tried to claim the leak was all part of a conspiracy orchestrated

00:04:15.040 by Elections Alberta. Both approaches only created mistrust within the general population which now

00:04:21.760 must be countered. The breach of information should have been immediately condemned and

00:04:26.940 quarantined. When the referendum on independence is held in Alberta this fall it's going to be a

00:04:31.920 yes or no question on the ballot but the voters are going to have to answer two questions to

00:04:35.520 themselves before making their mark. They're going to of course have to determine if they want

00:04:39.700 Alberta to be independent but they're also going to be asking themselves if they trust the

00:04:44.680 independence movement to lead the province after that into a better place. A person committed to

00:04:50.000 independence could still end up voting no if it appears the movement is dominated by corrupt 0.94

00:04:53.740 or inept players within it. Mitch Sylvester responded excellently when asked about the 0.81

00:04:59.640 Centurion Project mess. He said that David Parker had approached him with the concept but that he

00:05:04.400 felt there could be issues with the legality and chose not to be associated with it. That apparently

00:05:08.480 led to friction between Sylvester and Parker which is a good thing. Mitch directly addressed the issue

00:05:13.600 and stated clearly how it has nothing to do with the group petitioning.

00:05:17.280 It also exposed actually a glimmer of David Parker's nature.

00:05:21.620 The independence movement is made up by a number of groups,

00:05:24.020 and that's been an advantage and a disadvantage.

00:05:25.820 It's allowed people to move forward together towards a shared goal,

00:05:29.020 but it also leads to some mixed messaging.

00:05:31.320 There will be no political party or singular organization

00:05:34.000 speaking for the independence movement in the next few months.

00:05:36.920 The movement still, though, it must try to centralize some of the messaging to a degree

00:05:40.740 and ensure only credible people like Mitch speak for it.

00:05:44.560 Characters like David Parker and Cam Davies,

00:05:46.620 who already have well-established, checkered histories,

00:05:49.100 must be kept as far out of the movement as possible.

00:05:52.760 People like Mitch, Sylvester must step up

00:05:54.780 and take a more active role in speaking for the movement.

00:05:56.660 He should be the one speaking to the press guys, nobody else.

00:05:59.680 The middle must be one,

00:06:01.380 and Sylvester's rational, positive, and calm approach wins people over.

00:06:05.320 If the movement is represented by a loud, corpulent caricature

00:06:09.700 of a cowboy screaming about commies, it will be lost. It'll take some strength and potential

00:06:15.640 conflict to move the damaging elements within the movement into the background or out of it

00:06:19.500 altogether. But this must be done if the trust of voters is going to be gained. They don't see a

00:06:25.340 bunch of different groups, guys. They just see one independence movement. And if Mavericks are

00:06:29.520 continued to be embraced, it's only going to give the opponents ammunition. The independence

00:06:34.580 movement has flourished almost despite itself. To get over this largest hurdle that's coming now,

00:06:38.980 though, it must begin acting strategically and prove it's trustworthy. It can't sustain scandals

00:06:44.480 and to prevent those, the known bad actors must be ejected sooner rather than later.

00:06:51.400 That's my thoughts on this week so far. All right, Dave, what else have we got going on in our news

00:06:56.120 editor? I've had lots to cover. Corpulent. I wanted to make a certain person look up a dictionary.

00:07:02.000 I wonder who that could be. I don't know. There's lots of people that could be. It could be the

00:07:05.040 the Michelin tire man. There you go. You've had a busy week on Twitter, haven't you? Holy cow.

00:07:10.240 Wearing out the fingertips. You've been fighting with everybody. Yeah, yeah.

00:07:14.400 But you're own people, right? I would say you've been fighting with other independents.

00:07:18.700 Well, you know, I won't fault. I mean, a lot of the people who are pro-independence folks,

00:07:23.520 and they aren't communicators, they aren't campaigners. That's been the great thing of

00:07:27.280 this movement. You know, all these new people getting involved, but they better understand,

00:07:31.180 and I don't think they do, the dangers of what just happened. And they're doubling down on it.

00:07:35.040 and it's making it worse. And I just, I'm going to try and counter it as much as I can. Guys,

00:07:39.880 if you go out there, you know, Jason Kenney had his information exposed. And for people saying,

00:07:43.880 well, Kenney did this, Kenney did that, Kenney, fine. But you're not addressing the problem that

00:07:50.260 a former premier's personal information was exposed. You've got to call that out. And I'm

00:07:55.320 going to call these guys out. Guys, you're making this worse. Yeah. There's a couple of groups here

00:08:00.580 that I think are in big trouble.

00:08:03.220 And here's, I think, another one of your problems

00:08:05.620 is the slow-moving pace of the RCMP.

00:08:08.860 They're likely to have people arrested or people charged

00:08:13.460 in the weeks coming up in October, leading up to the election.

00:08:17.060 Oh, yeah.

00:08:17.320 The referendum, sorry.

00:08:18.820 That's it.

00:08:19.420 This can't be...

00:08:20.280 People say, well, we've got to wait for the legal investigation.

00:08:22.300 Guys, the referendum will be over by then.

00:08:24.340 Yeah.

00:08:24.680 You've got to quarantine these guys now

00:08:27.520 because you're going to be waiting a long time for this to be resolved.

00:08:31.380 Exactly.

00:08:31.900 And we've talked about this before.

00:08:33.360 I think one of the problems is the group does not have a singular leader.

00:08:37.140 No, and it's hard, and there's not a mechanism for it now

00:08:39.800 because, you know, there isn't a party.

00:08:41.460 There isn't time, even if there was something like that,

00:08:43.760 to hold an election and so on and all that distraction.

00:08:45.980 But I think they could still just consciously start putting more of those other voices.

00:08:50.560 You know, when Mitch did his press scrum the other day, it was really good.

00:08:53.940 Why isn't Mitch more often the one speaking to the media?

00:08:57.520 They've got to kind of choose who their official spokespeople are and keep that message controlled, at least to the people who tend to speak a little better on those things.

00:09:06.560 Too many egos in there, I think.

00:09:08.580 I think so.

00:09:10.260 I don't see what happens.

00:09:12.200 I'm getting hate mail again, but whatever.

00:09:13.720 That's nothing new to me.

00:09:14.480 I'm usually used to getting it from the left.

00:09:16.340 No, exactly.

00:09:17.280 Strange days.

00:09:18.540 So the whole mess here is sort of leading off our website with Jason Kenney saying he's going to get a lawyer and going to go sue David Parker in the Centurion Project.

00:09:30.420 For those who don't know what happened, they were having a seminar for people, and they put up his personal information that they got from the elections, Alberta people.

00:09:44.820 You know, his home address and stuff like that, it's, in this day and age, very dangerous, right?

00:09:51.020 I mean, there's lots of kooks out there, as we know.

00:09:54.000 Oh, yeah.

00:09:54.760 So, you know, if I'm Jason Kenney, I'm pissed, too.

00:09:57.920 So I'd be suing David Parker for whatever money he's got.

00:10:03.220 Well, I mean, it might be just whatever he can get a chip for the institution commissary.

00:10:07.960 It might be the only asset that he has pretty soon, but we'll see.

00:10:12.140 There you go.

00:10:14.820 My favorite story of the week, and it's a morbid one, is the rat-infested Hantavirus death ship.

00:10:22.060 Oh, it's horrible.

00:10:23.380 It's crazy.

00:10:23.860 It turns out today we find out that it was brought onto the ship by an Argentinian couple who had been birdwatching in Argentina.

00:10:34.540 And then they started rare cases of human-to-human transmission.

00:10:41.100 So there's three people dead on a boat.

00:10:43.400 Now they're finding that people who have left the boat or, you know, left the cruise, they're coming down with it now.

00:10:49.700 There's a man and his wife in Switzerland who have been tested positive.

00:10:55.820 They were on the cruise and left it.

00:10:57.920 So that ship was supposed to dock in the Canary Islands to get some people medical help.

00:11:04.020 And the government there refused permission.

00:11:07.000 So they're like this ship wandering the ocean blue with nowhere to go. 0.86

00:11:11.500 Well, with a bunch of sick people on it too.

00:11:13.360 I mean, imagine it's got to be, you know, this is serious.

00:11:15.560 Like this isn't even just talking COVID level things.

00:11:17.620 That virus will kill people.

00:11:18.920 Its mortality rate is 40%.

00:11:21.160 Yeah.

00:11:21.780 So, I mean, if you get it.

00:11:23.700 I did hate to be locked on that.

00:11:24.960 I mean, most of the people presumably still stuck on it are healthy, but you want to get off this thing.

00:11:29.760 Exactly.

00:11:30.700 Sooner than later.

00:11:32.420 We've got a good story on a Calgary lawyer.

00:11:34.460 He was previously charged with harassment, harassing a Calgary city police officer.

00:11:41.500 he's now being done with multiple counts of child luring and weapons offenses. So I guess the

00:11:47.180 question is, is he going to represent himself? And lawyers are a special breed. I mean,

00:11:53.580 them and realtors, I always find that just kind of people who are, there's good and bad, but the

00:11:56.860 unusual folks. Parks Canada says they're redoing the way they manage forests. Jasper fire 2024

00:12:07.580 caused by a lot of deadwood uh they're now trying to clean that up uh be more proactive and instead

00:12:13.340 of waiting till the town burns down and honda has put a uh hold on a 15 billion dollar electrical

00:12:20.220 vehicle plant in uh in ontario so i just wonder what the total is that canadian taxpayers are out

00:12:27.420 because of what governments what was it the stellantis one a bunch of others and ends we

00:12:32.060 just toss something like tens of billions of dollars somebody kindly on my behalf pulled up a

00:12:37.580 Tweet I threw at Justin Trudeau a couple of years ago talking about this is what's going to happen with it.

00:12:41.860 I thank them for watching my stuff to give me that I told you so moment.

00:12:45.220 There you go.

00:12:45.860 Boy, that's a lot of money flushed on this.

00:12:47.820 And we're nearing the end of the BC Conservative Leadership Race.

00:12:51.160 So our Alex Zoltan out there in Lotus Land has got an update on what the latest promises are.

00:12:58.100 Right on.

00:12:58.980 Well, yeah, Alex has been covering it excellently out there in BC.

00:13:01.220 Yeah, he's doing a good job.

00:13:01.700 And it's a big deal.

00:13:02.340 The NDP are going into the toilet.

00:13:03.920 So this is a very good chance whoever wins this race could be BC's next move here.

00:13:06.920 they're uh i think we had to pull up by 10 points now and they don't even have a leader huh it shows

00:13:12.360 how bad he is yeah yeah he's dead man walking right on well i'll let you get back and catch uh

00:13:17.160 caught up i know this morning's been uh it's been a bit of a hectic morning yeah i appreciate you

00:13:21.160 taking the time to share the headlines with us and uh i'll see you at the show you bet see you

00:13:25.000 on pipeline right you bet thanks so that is our news editor dave naylor yes laying on all of this

00:13:30.760 stuff breaking and going on so i gotta remind everybody the reason we can do that the reason

00:13:34.440 and Dave can have that pack of reporters to manage and get those stories out is because

00:13:39.860 you've subscribed. And if you haven't yet, westernstandard.news slash subscription,

00:13:43.420 10 bucks a month, guys, a hundred dollars for a year. And you get past that paywall and it

00:13:47.320 supports all of this stuff and keep us putting those news out there rather than relying on the

00:13:53.300 legacy media folks. So let's see some of these. You see, here's some of the commenting.

00:14:00.360 you're the only one who is inept ukraine baffoon see this is the commentary from the independence

00:14:08.940 movement and i know you can't control that these are individuals at the bottom there's the nature 0.94

00:14:14.060 of social media now though some individuals can throw stuff out and it gets thrown at the whole

00:14:18.080 movement we need to be a little more careful with uh who's speaking for things in general this

00:14:21.820 person of course clearly isn't another person saying we need a leader to move this forward

00:14:24.880 yeah i'm not sure like how do we do that um red tide making a good point you know self-inflicted 0.99

00:14:29.760 how do you stop people from doing this crap? Okay, Red Tide, so something I will explain quickly

00:14:33.280 before I get to my guest is the characters behind this were well known to those of us who have

00:14:39.200 already been in politics for some years. We always knew that Parker and Davies were toxic. We really

00:14:45.840 did. Then most of us wisely stayed the heck away from either of those two. Others, some of the

00:14:50.220 senior levels within this movement should have known that. Thankfully, they didn't fully jump

00:14:55.080 into bed with the Centurion Project, but they already should have been putting up walls between

00:14:58.700 the two of them right off the bat and the second this broke they should have said whoa whoa we got

00:15:03.960 nothing to do with that that's crazy dave not us either way we'll talk more about that after my

00:15:09.680 guest as i said it's a rare one it was pre-recorded uh eric duham he is the leader of the conservative

00:15:15.060 party of quebec he came out here to alberta and had a chat in studio the other day so have a listen

00:15:19.140 to this and we'll talk some more thank you very much for taking the time to to join us today uh

00:15:26.680 Mr. Dehem. I guess the first question I got to ask, though, is a provincial politician in an election year from Quebec.

00:15:33.220 What brings you to Alberta right now?

00:15:34.660 Well, first off, thank you for welcoming me.

00:15:37.240 What brings me to Alberta and everywhere all across Canada, because we're touring Canada.

00:15:41.220 I was in Saskatchewan earlier last week and B.C. leading to Ontario tonight.

00:15:47.680 So what brings us here is that I just launched a book, Destination Autonomy, where, you know,

00:15:53.600 we're talking in favor of decentralization, giving more powers to provinces, respecting the

00:15:58.300 constitution of this country, because there's a huge, you know, sentiment right now of unfairness

00:16:05.720 all across Canada. And we have a liberal government in Ottawa that is centralizing more and more and

00:16:10.840 more, that is running huge deficit, historic deficits year after year. It's worse than Trudeau

00:16:16.360 right now. And people get frustrated in regions. The separatist movements are growing out west and

00:16:22.640 in Quebec, because of that. And we need to make sure that, you know, it's not because they call

00:16:28.320 themselves Captain Canada in Ottawa that the Liberals are. They're actually the ones feeding

00:16:32.900 the separatist movement right now and the frustration in all of our regions. And we need

00:16:37.880 to push back. We need to create alliance with autonomous, just like me, just like here, Premier

00:16:42.560 Smith, or Premier Mo, or the BC Conservatives. We need to make an alliance together to give

00:16:49.380 ourselves a bargaining power so we defend provincial rights and jurisdictions great mr

00:16:54.260 rey so you're running the conservative party of quebec and there is a conservative base of support

00:16:59.860 out there but it's been uh difficult i mean you've got a very much of a mixed legislature of the

00:17:06.020 national assembly there look we started at one percent five years ago and when i took over as a

00:17:10.660 as leader um we did 13 in the last election we're at 15 right now we had our first member crossing

00:17:18.020 the floor three, four weeks ago, the former natural resource minister Maïté Blanchet-Vizna

00:17:22.740 came over and joined us. So we're present now in the National Assembly. If there were an election

00:17:27.780 today, according to the latest polls, we would have somewhere between 10 and 14 members in the

00:17:32.840 National Assembly. We'd actually have the balance of power in a minority government. So it's not

00:17:37.480 too bad for a start. After only four or five years, I can tell you that conservatives are back in

00:17:43.220 Quebec and they're going to be back in the National Assembly in significant

00:17:46.820 numbers on October 5th. So that balancing as you pointed out with Scott Moe,

00:17:52.100 Premier Smith, particularly in Alberta right now, I mean there's a very lively

00:17:56.540 independence movement going on in Alberta right now. Premier Smith isn't overly

00:18:00.800 supportive of the independence movement but she understands that Ottawa is a

00:18:05.780 problem, the Liberal government is a problem or possibly the system is a

00:18:09.800 a problem, that Balancing Act

00:18:11.780 for Conservative leaders right now is very difficult

00:18:13.840 to achieve. How can you

00:18:15.560 maintain, I guess, the support for Conservatism

00:18:17.920 while still convincing

00:18:20.020 the voters that you would stand up

00:18:21.860 for the autonomy of the Trump?

00:18:23.780 You're right that it's a battle

00:18:25.780 because it's an equilibrium and

00:18:27.460 we want to tell people, you know, don't give up

00:18:29.980 and make sure that we can win battles

00:18:31.700 and that's why we keep

00:18:33.620 pushing and that's why I'm publishing a book

00:18:35.760 and that's why we're going to campaign on that

00:18:37.580 because you might know, but

00:18:39.800 The separatists right now, the Parti Québécois, is leading in the polls right now in Quebec.

00:18:44.120 So if there were an election today, we would have a separatist government in Quebec City,

00:18:48.120 which is not a good news for national unity, obviously,

00:18:51.320 but which is not a good news for Alberta neither,

00:18:54.240 because I think both our provinces are allies in many ways, forms and shapes when it comes to Ottawa.

00:19:01.180 We're sick and tired of the Ottawa knows best.

00:19:03.660 And we have to realize that we need to build bridges between us.

00:19:09.140 We have much more in common than anyone else.

00:19:12.600 And that's my purpose.

00:19:14.420 And that's why I think we should even have the leaders of the conservative parties in each province to meet together at least once a year to talk about autonomy and give ourselves a bargaining power.

00:19:26.940 You know, this country was not bad initially.

00:19:28.620 I mean, we have a constitution where the fathers of confederation decided that there's going to be two sovereign governments in their own jurisdictions, the provinces and the federal government.

00:19:38.660 But unfortunately, when the liberals are in power in Ottawa, they think they have a government that's dominating the provinces and they don't even seem to understand the basis of the of the constitution of this country.

00:19:49.420 So that's why we, you know, we need to fight back. And there has been successful things happening in Alberta.

00:19:57.520 If you look at Danielle Smith, you know, she adopted a law on the sovereignty of Alberta within the United Canada Act in Saskatchewan.

00:20:04.820 they adopted Saskatchewan first. They're doing things that are giving them more power. They won

00:20:10.240 over the environmental evaluation for their natural resources programs with a new pipeline.

00:20:16.120 There's issues that they were able to move. And it's not because of Ottawa. It's because of the

00:20:20.640 pressure that Alberta's putting on the federal government and the bargaining power that they

00:20:24.640 gave themselves. They even had their minister resign in Ottawa. A guy from Quebec, Stephen

00:20:29.600 Gilbo resigned because he disagreed with Mark Carney having to sign a deal with Daniel Smith

00:20:35.920 and that's the kind of thing we like to do and we want to do and we want to imitate Alberta you know

00:20:39.760 Quebecers have inspired Alberta in terms of autonomy for a long time and now it's kind of

00:20:45.200 the reverse a bit I mean Alberta is inspiring us I have the book here that I want to show you

00:20:51.760 this nation autonomy is it people see it it's in French also it's a of course it's a bilingual

00:20:57.760 but um and and can i tell you an anecdote about this book by all means i launched it a little

00:21:03.120 bit more than two weeks ago in quebec city at a bookstore and the radical left decided that they

00:21:09.760 don't like me launching a book so they started the boycott of the bookstore it's a small bookstore

00:21:14.640 independent bookstore and it's a tough business these days uh and they attacked you know the

00:21:21.120 owners of the bookstore are not political activists they're just they're doing that

00:21:25.440 with any author that wants to launch a book at their bookstore and you know the cancel culture

00:21:31.920 today is so crazy that they wanted to you know attack the them professors at a college came out

00:21:41.120 saying that asking their students to also boycott the bookstore where they normally buy their books

00:21:47.520 and so on so it's it became kind of a controversy by itself even if the issue is not that controversial

00:21:52.880 to talk about devolution of power,

00:21:55.220 but we live in a woke culture now,

00:21:57.580 so that's what happens.

00:21:58.540 It's unfortunate with the cancel culture,

00:22:00.220 and particularly, again,

00:22:01.160 when they come after conservatives.

00:22:02.380 I mean, you aren't coming from a fringe.

00:22:03.980 You're just coming from a good classical liberal

00:22:05.680 or conservative position, typically.

00:22:08.880 Speaking of the autonomy more, though,

00:22:10.320 I mean, Alberta, I think we're hearing

00:22:12.000 more of that language here,

00:22:12.900 saying, you know, we should be learning from Quebec

00:22:14.300 rather than complaining about Quebec

00:22:15.540 as much as we used to.

00:22:17.200 There is a lot of ability within the Constitution

00:22:19.320 to assert ourselves.

00:22:21.180 We just haven't been effectively doing it as much, whereas Quebec has more of an attitude of, well, we're going to do it anyway and move ahead.

00:22:29.180 But is there ever going to be a chance for constitutional reform?

00:22:31.620 Because there are some issues we have in Alberta where the system has some problematic things within it, but nothing shy of constitutional reform will help us with that.

00:22:41.500 We've been that way.

00:22:42.740 We tried that path.

00:22:43.920 Yes.

00:22:44.200 It was a huge fiasco, and I don't think there's a lot of appetite to reopen the Constitution and start a new round of negotiations and trying to find seven provinces out of ten with 50% of the population or all sorts of rules that are needed to change any kind of thing.

00:23:03.340 But the problem is not necessarily the Constitution per se.

00:23:07.200 The problem is the interpretation that the liberals did and the spending power that they gave themselves.

00:23:11.960 When you have a federal government that is having a $60 billion deficit,

00:23:15.860 it's because they're not mining their own business.

00:23:19.820 And that's not because the constitution is not proper.

00:23:23.060 It's because the government in Ottawa is not well intended.

00:23:26.480 And so there's ways to put pressure.

00:23:31.020 And, you know, anyway, the model, the federal liberals model,

00:23:34.680 is not sustainable in the long run.

00:23:36.560 They're going to run out of money.

00:23:38.040 So you can't keep going the way they are.

00:23:40.540 They can't implement their federalism vision for the long run because we can't afford it.

00:23:48.820 So I think that we can work within the current framework and at least push forward to that and see where it leads.

00:23:56.460 But for a new round of constitutional negotiations, I don't know in Alberta, but in Quebec, I can tell you that the appetite is not quite there.

00:24:03.700 And the appetite isn't here either, but that's part of what's leading to the independence movement, because there's issues such as the Senate and equalization that people would like to see changes with, but can't change without constitutional reform.

00:24:14.940 Well, when we talk about autonomy, the autonomy is also about money.

00:24:19.860 And that's why, as you know, I'm someone who supports the exploitation of natural resources in Quebec, particularly natural gas.

00:24:28.960 I think it's important.

00:24:30.620 We have to stop depending on transfer payments and depend more on our own people and our own natural resources.

00:24:37.440 Autonomy, yes, it's power and it's constitution, but it's also financial.

00:24:41.220 And it's also, you know, we're talking about sovereignty and independence, but the first sovereignty and independence, especially nowadays, it starts with our energy.

00:24:51.960 I mean, if you can't, if you're dependent on your energy from other people coming from elsewhere, you have a huge problem.

00:24:59.080 And it goes with...

00:24:59.840 At least some people are realizing that when these bills are coming in right now.

00:25:02.900 We have to realize it.

00:25:03.980 It's a huge problem.

00:25:04.800 In Quebec, we thought we had energy forever, you know, because we have hydroelectricity and we thought that Quebec was very wealthy.

00:25:11.760 Well, now we realize we have a shortage, even in Quebec, you know.

00:25:16.780 And there are some very large gas deposits that could be developed if the will was there.

00:25:21.520 So, I guess, moving on, though, you're in a campaign year.

00:25:24.100 You've got about five and a half months to go.

00:25:25.700 I imagine most of your time is going to be in Quebec pretty soon.

00:25:27.920 Of course.

00:25:28.360 What is your platform into Quebecers, which you're reaching out to them with?

00:25:32.580 Well, we're a small-c conservative party, so obviously we want, you know, to stop the deficits.

00:25:37.260 We had the highest deficit in our history last year.

00:25:41.680 The agencies even lowered our ratings last year.

00:25:48.680 We also want to make sure we downsize the bureaucracy.

00:25:52.680 The bureaucracy has been booming over the last few years.

00:25:56.900 Something that could be a little bit more controversial in English Canada, but is more accepted in Quebec.

00:26:01.300 We also want to give greater access to health care by adding the contribution of the private sector.

00:26:09.560 We do believe that it's time to have an open debate about private health care in Canada and in Quebec

00:26:14.140 and talk about the Canadian Health Act.

00:26:18.480 We think it's important to, you know, the current model is not sustainable neither.

00:26:24.960 I mean, we're putting more and more money every year and the results are not there

00:26:28.440 and the winning lists keep going higher and higher.

00:26:31.300 Other than that, we also want to exploit our natural gas, as I said earlier on, that's for us, it's very important. We need to create wealth, stop depending on Alberta's transfer payments money. So it's the kind of policies, and of course, and that's why we came up with the book lately, and of course, increase Quebec's power within the Canadian constitution, the Confederation.

00:26:55.860 And for us, that's that center because the other parties, the Liberals, you know, they're the Liberals, provincial or federal. They love centralization. They love abusing provincial powers. The separatists, they just want to break up the country. They don't want to do a good deal, a better deal for Quebecers. And we're positioning ourselves in between.

00:27:16.380 Great. So, I mean, those cooperative efforts, if it was a minority government and perhaps you're in the balance of power, you know, I know you're campaigning to win. I imagine that'd be the sort of thing. Could we have some sort of summit with premiers, things to put that pressure on from multiple provinces? Rather, because we come in as 10 individuals rather than five or six together.

00:27:36.500 I think it could make a difference. And that's why I'm meeting Premier Smith this afternoon, just to talk about that. It's very, very important that we understand that we're stronger when we're together. And conservatives in Canada, we all work in each of our provinces or at the federal level. But unfortunately, we don't connect as well. And in Quebec, we've been absent. We've been out of the National Assembly for close to nine decades.

00:28:03.920 And in BC, it was not as long, but almost.

00:28:06.820 Now they're back in force, but they were out of it.

00:28:10.120 So I think the conservative movement in Canada,

00:28:12.600 especially at the provincial level, is gaining momentum.

00:28:15.080 And we need to build on that and to put even more pressure on Ottawa.

00:28:18.860 Are you seeing one of the trends that we're seeing

00:28:20.980 with conservative support, actually, in BC and some others,

00:28:23.200 is more of a younger demographic and leaning there now than traditionally,

00:28:27.440 mostly because of housing costs, educational?

00:28:29.420 they're realizing they're not seeing a good future for themselves right now under these current

00:28:34.060 governments. You're absolutely right. Even in Quebec, it's the same thing. We're at 3% among

00:28:39.080 seniors. We're at 15% in general population, over 25% for the 25, 35, 40. So yeah, it's a

00:28:48.680 generational shift. And it could be explained also by the media, the traditional media. And

00:28:53.660 I don't want to attack the Western standard.

00:28:55.520 It's quite the opposite.

00:28:57.260 But like for us in Quebec, I'm going to give you a real example.

00:29:01.680 We have 1% to 2% of the coverage in the traditional media.

00:29:06.040 We're at 15%, 16% in the polls.

00:29:08.600 Quebec's already on the radical left.

00:29:09.900 They're on the left of the NDP, the provincial level in Quebec.

00:29:12.880 They're getting, for example, on CBC, 17% of the coverage.

00:29:16.080 They're at 8% in the polls.

00:29:18.020 So it gives you an idea that the older people, they watch more,

00:29:22.560 and they're more into the mainstream media.

00:29:25.980 And so they don't know us

00:29:27.200 or what they know of us is very negative.

00:29:29.280 While the youth, they're on social media,

00:29:31.320 they see all the things we're doing directly

00:29:33.480 and we're much more popular among those crowds.

00:29:36.700 And also because we're talking about their issues.

00:29:38.500 We're talking about housing,

00:29:39.560 the fact that they can't afford a house anymore,

00:29:41.480 the fact that they can't even pay their grocery these days,

00:29:44.540 the fact that the education system has huge problems.

00:29:47.320 So we're talking their language

00:29:48.700 and the message resonates.

00:29:50.460 And, you know, I'm old enough to recall that it used to be the opposite.

00:29:55.320 Yeah, it's a total flip.

00:29:57.160 It's a total flip.

00:29:57.880 It's been interesting to watch across the country.

00:29:59.840 Well, the time went quickly, but before I let you go then, I mean, one more time, where can people find a copy of your book and information about your party and such to, you know, watch or participate or support if they're interested?

00:30:09.640 They could go on Amazon, actually.

00:30:11.700 It's on sale everywhere.

00:30:13.860 So Destination Autonomy or Destination Autonomy, if you're looking for the French version.

00:30:18.480 And what's coming up for the party?

00:30:20.520 Well, it's the election in October, so we're already on a campaign move.

00:30:24.060 We're announcing candidates.

00:30:25.180 We're presenting our platform.

00:30:26.740 So it's going to be a very interesting year.

00:30:29.880 And Quebec politics is something different.

00:30:31.700 There's five parties that are going to be competitive.

00:30:33.600 So it's very unusual.

00:30:35.080 Our system normally is two, maybe three, but not much more.

00:30:38.780 Us, it's five.

00:30:40.220 So I think it's going to be a very, very interesting thing.

00:30:44.420 Everything could happen.

00:30:45.300 And, you know, we could make history because I think that the Conservatives getting back in Quebec City with a strong, you know, caucus could change things constitutionally and politically in Canada.

00:31:00.180 Well, I really hope you guys do well.

00:31:01.700 And I know you're taking this seriously when you're taking time away from Quebec during the Montreal playoff run that's going.

00:31:07.660 So I wish you the best and hope we get to talk again soon.

00:31:10.840 It's a pleasure.

00:31:13.000 Well, there you have it, folks.

00:31:14.280 conservatives do exist in the province of quebec and do have a you know some degree of support and

00:31:20.820 mr de hem i think speaks with good common sense and things and you know i'll have those interviews

00:31:24.960 i mean i would like to see say for example an independent uh alberta an independent quebec

00:31:31.320 kind of as raw road send one of the commenters just said you know uh canada's too large to

00:31:36.460 govern and we need independence in all the provinces i i fully agree with that uh but i

00:31:41.540 I mean, I don't wish ill on Quebecers.

00:31:43.220 Hey, get somebody like Mr. DeHemmin

00:31:44.800 and start developing your natural gas,

00:31:46.900 start acting properly.

00:31:48.280 Either way, is books worth checking out?

00:31:50.280 And it was a good conversation.

00:31:52.400 But we should get back, I guess,

00:31:53.640 a bit to the hot discussion,

00:31:56.260 which has been going on this week

00:31:57.820 and what's going on with the independence movement,

00:31:59.520 what's happening.

00:32:00.120 Look, what we're seeing

00:32:01.140 is how strong the opposition

00:32:04.660 is going to be against this.

00:32:06.120 We kind of always knew it was going to be.

00:32:08.300 what my issue is don't give them bullets though don't make it easier for them than it has to be

00:32:15.900 and that's kind of what happened here and it's going to be hard to prevent all of that because

00:32:21.520 again there's that that difficulty with it being a decentralized movement uh but at the same time

00:32:29.540 you know you got other individuals are considered to be speaking for it so van fashions you know

00:32:33.140 puts a good point saying anybody proposing it needs to be a party or have a single leader

00:32:36.340 likely working with Nenshi. I don't know about that, but I mean, it's probably just not the

00:32:42.220 way to go with this, but way too late anyways. If they wanted to find a singular person to speak

00:32:46.280 for the whole movement, that would have had to been done prior to all of this. I mean, there's

00:32:50.380 five and some months left. That's the point I keep making to people. The campaign is on now. We don't

00:32:55.680 have time. I talked about that on a video I put up on my own channel a little while ago too,

00:33:01.140 because there's some people pushing, saying that we got to get involved with the UCP. Okay,

00:33:04.440 not necessarily a bad thing, but then to push the UCP into having a special general meeting in

00:33:08.600 August on independence, like guys, you only got so much energy and so much campaign time.

00:33:14.140 You don't have time to do that sort of activity. We're going to get the referendum. That's a given.

00:33:19.120 It's just whether or not we're going to win it. That's a big, big F and a huge one. And how we,

00:33:27.420 we, we can't get one voice is going to speak for the whole movement. That's just not the nature of

00:33:32.840 it now, and it would just be too difficult to establish that. Most of what I'm making as a

00:33:39.340 point is that we do have to make clear, though, who doesn't speak for the movement, particularly

00:33:45.660 when they step in it, as Parker and Davies appear to have done. Again, by the way, Google those

00:33:54.920 guys. I'm not just shooting at them because of a, you know, a dislike, though I've got some.

00:34:03.600 It's a long history with those two. Those don't speak for it. And other people who are getting

00:34:08.740 larger profile things, but say controversial or crazy stuff, and they are some crazy stuff out

00:34:13.640 there. It should at least be pushed back on. Who? I don't know. Michael saying, what, you think one

00:34:19.580 voice doesn't matter. No, every voice matters. Every voice matters. And that's, that's the

00:34:25.440 interesting thing with social media. This is all uncharted waters. This is new. This is not like

00:34:30.500 30 years ago where only those who would get into legacy media would speak to a large amount of

00:34:34.960 people. Now anybody with a phone can get out there on a social media platform and put a message out

00:34:40.680 that might go to four people or might go to a hundred thousand people. And that comes again

00:34:46.600 with good and bad is true grassroots, but it also leads to, you know, a lot of disinformation

00:34:53.960 getting around or people who are just making things worse. Yeah, who knows? This is from

00:35:02.200 Feisty Fry, a commenter saying, Carney says he has plans to meet with the Alberta Premier when

00:35:05.820 she's in Ottawa. I wonder if it's true. I don't know, probably. The Premier will meet with the

00:35:09.800 Prime Minister if that happens. You know, I'm not that concerned about it. I'm not going to get

00:35:15.500 anywhere, just wasting more time, get more mealy-mouthed stuff out of Kearney. But people

00:35:19.780 talk about, you know, where Smith's going with things. I don't mind when she goes up and fails

00:35:26.380 with the Kearney government, because it just keeps, that helps build the independence movement.

00:35:31.600 It shows the futility of trying to play nice. It shows the waste of time of playing within the

00:35:37.820 system. But Premier Smith's role right now is to try, but we know it's going to fail. It's been

00:35:45.160 laughable. The Western Standard reported on that recently. The big, you know, project office that

00:35:52.500 was supposed to fast track all these major projects. It's been almost a year and it hasn't

00:35:58.480 approved one. Do they even understand their own stinking mandate? You don't navel gaze for a year

00:36:05.660 as a group that's tasked with fast tracking things. All it is is kicking the can down the road.

00:36:13.500 and uh it's it's harming us well it's not harming us actually it's helping the independence movement

00:36:20.240 but things that aren't helping the independence movement are just having people blasting off

00:36:24.820 all over the place the vote is going to be based for a lot of people much more on trust

00:36:32.780 rather than the nuts and the bolts and the economics and the stats this is a gut feeling

00:36:41.220 vote for a lot of people. And that is a lot of that mushy middle. Look at it as three big circles.

00:36:47.160 You know, you see those things with that overlap in the middle. You got the far end that's definitely

00:36:51.700 never going to vote for independence. You got this end that's definitely going to vote for it,

00:36:54.540 but the huge part in the middle, because that's where that line is going to matter.

00:36:59.780 Those need to be won. And a lot of them are going to vote based on how they feel

00:37:04.980 about one side or another. And if the independent side appears not to be trustworthy, not to be

00:37:14.260 principled, people will vote the other way. And that will lose the referendum. How do we stop it?

00:37:22.780 I don't know. Somebody else pointed out that CBC was reporting as if Parker was the leader

00:37:27.380 of the independence movement. Of course, those of us within it know he is not. But legacy media and

00:37:33.480 our opponents are going to lump everything together. As I said, we can't prevent all of

00:37:38.060 that. They're going to keep doing it, but we can mitigate and reduce it as much as humanly possible.

00:37:45.020 They were thrown a gift. That's part of why I am so upset. Monday should have been such a great

00:37:51.360 day. As I said at the start of my monologue, history was made. We've never had anything like

00:37:56.380 that. I did go out to see those people on the highway working their butts off in city areas,

00:38:02.060 getting people, giving them the finger, all of that on their own time as volunteers, following

00:38:08.380 the rules, only to have opponents now questioning the legitimacy of their work, their petitioning

00:38:17.540 because of what Parker's group and the Centurion Clowns did. They undercut so much trust. And yes,

00:38:26.500 it's being unfair to lump that on it. I've seen no evidence, and I don't believe for a second

00:38:30.820 that Parker's access to the list had anything to do with the petition signatures going in.

00:38:37.560 It's a clean petition. All the volunteers, the others, it's fine. And you know, it'll be verified.

00:38:43.900 So people wondering about that, you know, how does that work with elections in Alberta and so on?

00:38:47.840 With other petitions, whether it was your petitioning to run for office or petitioning

00:38:52.340 for a referendum or things like that, they will bring in, they don't check every single one of

00:38:58.740 them. First thing though, they will check a whole pile of them against the electors list. That's

00:39:02.080 just their way to make sure these people exist. You can't just make up an address. You need to

00:39:05.760 kind of cross-reference. And they won't do it with all of them, but they'll do it with a lot.

00:39:09.980 On top of that, they will actually phone a bunch of them. They'll follow up. They'll say,

00:39:17.280 pardon me, sir, this is Elections Alberta. We're just calling. We'd like to just confirm that you

00:39:21.240 did sign a petition. And if, say, they checked on 10,000 signatures, let's just say, I'm just

00:39:29.860 throwing a number out there, and they found that 90% of the signatures were validated, they were

00:39:35.920 good, everything else, they will reduce 10% from the petitioning number and put the petition in

00:39:42.920 as it is. See, that's what happened with Lukasik's 400 and some thousand. If people remember when he

00:39:51.000 put it in, it was 440,000 or something like that. Elections Alberta, when they did follow up on that,

00:39:55.520 found about a 13% error rate. And those errors can be all sorts of things. It doesn't mean corruption

00:39:59.180 or bad things, but it does mean that, you know, maybe there were names that couldn't be read

00:40:04.600 or addresses that were wrong or people, again, that just weren't on the list. So they kind of

00:40:09.520 did that. And then they sucked about 40,000 signatures off of their total. That's how

00:40:14.100 Elections Alberta works with those things. And that's what'll happen with this one. But with

00:40:19.300 301,000 signatures, and I've seen how meticulous and careful people were with getting them.

00:40:24.560 I'd be surprised if more than 5% even, it turns out to be the number they take off at. There's

00:40:29.300 no way it's going to be knocked down below 178,000. The only thing that could be bad,

00:40:34.660 you know, overall with this and problematic is if they found one of the salted names

00:40:41.840 in a petition. And I'll explain that a bit because not everybody necessarily understands

00:40:47.000 these electoral lists work, okay? And I don't see why they'd find one of those salted names.

00:40:50.680 Again, the State Free Alberta has been on the up and up all the way through, so it shouldn't

00:40:54.920 be a problem. When Elections Alberta gives out the information to political parties,

00:41:03.160 they give out the voter list to every political party, they salt the list, they will have some

00:41:08.440 fake names in there, they'll have some other identifiers in there that are unique only to that

00:41:13.320 list. And if that name pops up anywhere else, you know where the list came from. So what has

00:41:22.120 happened, and I will say that not allegedly, what has happened is that salted names appeared in the

00:41:29.300 database that the Centurion Project put out for, and again, for people to publicly access that

00:41:36.740 information. That's another level of the problem with this. They found those unique salted names.

00:41:42.400 the only possible way those names could show up in the Centurion database is that it had an

00:41:48.340 electors list in it. That's confirmed. Now, Mr. Parker, I guess, can make his defense as to how

00:41:53.760 that ended up in his database. We'll see, I guess, what happens with that. But it was in there. That's

00:41:59.760 why the injunction was served so quickly, because they could show the evidence for the elections

00:42:04.300 Alberta and say, look, we logged into this site, we typed in a few of these names, and bang, we got

00:42:08.860 hits. The other thing it proves is where it came from. So they know there's no denying that this

00:42:16.780 list came from the Republican party of Alberta. Cam Davies has some questions to answer. Was it

00:42:23.080 stolen from them? Did they sell it? Was it hacked? Was it given away? I don't know, but it did come

00:42:31.460 from there. That's confirmed too. And it's problematic. It really is. What I think it's

00:42:38.160 going to lead to? I think the government's going to change the legislation. This happened in Calgary

00:42:42.260 with the municipal elections as well. They used to give the electors list to all the candidates until

00:42:45.540 some crackpot candidates started making bad use of the list. There was a guy who was talking about

00:42:51.000 sharing information about people who worked in health services from the list and giving their

00:42:55.760 addresses out in public. So then because of that nut, they just took away those lists from politicians

00:43:00.780 altogether. I won't be surprised if these lists get pulled out of the political realm provincially

00:43:06.320 altogether too eventually just nobody will have it anymore whatever but for the immediate term

00:43:13.280 those lists were leaked wrongly and i just can't say it enough guys to try and compare to a phone 0.51

00:43:22.640 book is dismissive it's stupid it's not like that and for others say well you can just find that 0.61

00:43:28.960 information anywhere no you can't actually there's some public people who keep their locations very 0.98

00:43:34.080 discreet they try very hard because they do have nutcases out there coming after them now include

00:43:41.200 myself in that you should see some of the emails i get i don't want people easily finding my house

00:43:45.920 and i understand they have other ways they could find it and whatever there's ways to get people's

00:43:49.920 addresses but when you're entrusted with a list like that it doesn't matter if that information

00:43:54.320 is available somewhere else you were responsible for that bloody list so how are we supposed to

00:43:59.680 trust a movement when there's a whole bunch of people who say well i don't care if somebody's

00:44:03.120 personal information got leaked out and they may come to harm from it an analogy i used on x not

00:44:08.080 long ago would you guys be okay if again so let's say mitch sylvester became the president of an

00:44:12.560 independent republic of alberta and then people shared what his address was it's the same thing

00:44:20.560 and it's wrong because there will be crazy people going after mitch when you see these violations

00:44:27.280 happen don't try to dismiss them try to look at how it might apply to you and your side that's

00:44:32.240 That's what it comes to when people are talking about allowing the government to violate free speech or things like that.

00:44:38.160 When it's an authoritarian sort of law, even if it's your side, always imagine a government that's not on your side having that power.

00:44:48.480 So please, movement.

00:44:50.940 I want it to move.

00:44:51.960 I think it's fantastic.

00:44:52.960 It was a great week.

00:44:54.180 There's going to be a referendum.

00:44:55.540 But guys, we've got to clean it up.

00:44:58.000 We've got to win trust.

00:44:59.980 And trust took a blow this week.

00:45:02.240 We can get it back, got five months to do it.

00:45:05.980 But for starters, you got to clear out the problems

00:45:09.960 and you got to show that you won't accept any of that.

00:45:13.440 And you will condemn that

00:45:14.440 and you will distance yourself from that.

00:45:16.000 Show that you're better.

00:45:17.940 You know, there's a lot of whataboutism too.

00:45:19.200 Oh, the NDP did this, the NDP did that.

00:45:21.260 Maybe they did, maybe they didn't.

00:45:22.460 By the way, they're legally allowed to send you texts.

00:45:24.060 I know it's annoying, but they are allowed to.

00:45:25.600 That's within the ability of the list.

00:45:27.760 Whataboutism and saying the other guy did it too,

00:45:31.020 two wrongs make it right defense,

00:45:32.240 doesn't work. It just makes you look untrustworthy. All right, guys, that's it for today. Thank you

00:45:36.940 very much for tuning in. Hopefully it'll be more positive next week. We'll see. I am optimistic

00:45:40.160 about the whole thing. I honestly am. Tune into the pipeline tonight. We're going to talk a bit

00:45:44.460 more about that on a panel with a bunch of us and make sure to like, subscribe, share, do all that

00:45:49.440 good stuff so all our shows can get out there and let's keep at it. Thanks a lot. And we will see

00:45:54.040 you on the next one.

00:46:02.240 Transcription by CastingWords

Western Standard - May 06, 2026

The Alberta independence campaign must clean itself up

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