00:00:56.840and the question that Albertans are going to be voting on on October 19th.
00:01:01.760Yeah, it really is a referendum to have a referendum.
00:01:08.720You'll remember the petition, the independence petition,
00:01:12.860was blocked by a court of appeal justice, so that couldn't go ahead.
00:01:19.600So we had the stay in Canada petition by Thomas Lukasik
00:01:24.960that basically the Premier has accepted that question.
00:01:31.320So on October 19th, the Albertans are going to be asked,
00:01:35.340do you want to stay in Canada or do you want to start the process to leave Canada?
00:01:42.160And the reaction has been what you expect.
00:01:49.100Those leading the independence sides are kind of going crazy.
00:01:54.280People like Corey will tell you that the independence group should use this and get themselves more organized and whatnot.
00:02:04.420But yeah, Albertans will have a say October 19th.
00:02:08.140Do you want to stay as part of Canada or do you want to start the process to become an independent country?
00:02:14.760So this referendum isn't precisely what anyone asked for, but it's a combination of what people had asked for that I don't think makes anyone quite happy.
00:02:28.140If you talk to the Forever Canada petitioners, they claim that the referendum petition they signed was to not have a referendum.
00:02:37.960I mean, it's kind of like the pullout method of not having referendums.
00:02:43.880Like, accidents are going to happen, guys, especially with the act you're engaging in.
00:02:50.020So, father of the nation, of Alberta nationhood, Thomas Lukasik, got his way, legally speaking.
00:02:59.600He's going to get a referendum on should Alberta stay in Canada.
00:03:03.860As Dave said, there were injunctions against the Stay Free Alberta petition, which was a straightforward Clarity Act compliant question on should Alberta become, seems to be a province and become an independent country.
00:03:20.660That's not on the ballot because of some very bizarre court rulings saying that, you know, it's massively expanding the duty to consult with Indigenous groups to be, the consultation has to be before even deciding to pursue something.
00:03:37.300So I guess if we were to apply this to, say, a pipeline, before you announce you even want to build a pipeline, you have to do the consultation.
00:03:53.860Everybody probably remembers how many years it took in fights over the carbon tax going to the Supreme Court, fights over the No More Pipelines Act, those kinds of things.
00:04:03.540So if there is going to be a referendum in the fall, it's not allowed. Oddly enough, the federal courts ruled that Alberta cannot have a referendum in compliance with the Federal Clarity Act and the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling around the secession reference case.
00:04:23.880So it's it's very contradictory. But these things take years to sort out. So I think what, Corey, I want to go to you here. I think this is not going to make a lot of in the in the independence camp happy because it's not a vote on independence. It's a vote on if Alberta should begin the process of moving towards a formal vote on independence.
00:04:48.840It is, it's a referendum on if we should have a referendum. I don't know, how charitable should we be, say, from a pro-independence perspective? How charitable should we be, you know, on, is this the best that could be hoped for in the circumstances with these court rulings? Or is it as, say, guys like Jeffrey Rath are saying this is a cop-out and Smith needs to be overthrown and someone else installed?
00:05:14.740well i mean i don't like this i've been an independence advocate since i didn't have gray
00:05:20.960hair and uh you know we were coming closer to what we thought might be a definitive clear vote
00:05:26.000based on the clarity act an actual binding one closer than we'd ever seen before
00:05:30.620and now it's it's sort of been kicked down the road but that said uh despite what with some of
00:05:37.400the people like mr wrath and others who it seems have spent years trying to get rid of premier
00:05:41.720Smith she can't put a binary question on the ballot I've talked to a number of people because
00:05:47.000I was wondering about it like is it possible for her just to say too bad we're going to put it on
00:05:50.520and no the second a binary question goes on the ballot it will go to court and the courts will
00:05:56.680rule the same thing this appeal process has to be drawn out unfortunately this is the uncharted water
00:06:03.260of a modern independence movement because yeah I know Quebec didn't have to deal with that in 1995
00:06:08.180but the world has changed a lot legally since then and the requirement is ridiculous and it's
00:06:14.140something appealable and hopefully winnable because as you said it'll apply to things like
00:06:17.540pipelines and such but the independence movement can't just toss up their hands and give up
00:06:21.980they've been given a question to chew on which is still important and they can campaign for it
00:06:27.680they can you know don't worry about freaking out at the provincial government you'll have time for
00:06:31.880that later you still want to at least get as good and affirmative to wanting to move on in the
00:06:36.940process to becoming independent than, you know, rather than sitting around waiting for an appeal.
00:06:41.980So you were given something to work on. And even if I don't even like the way the
00:06:46.480question is structured, but all the same, you kind of got to make do with what you got or,
00:06:51.640you know, the lemons and lemonade thing and see what you can make of it because otherwise you're
00:06:57.280just giving up. And if you get that affirmative, then you really do have some grounds to say,
00:07:03.260look, the premier now has a mandate. Now she should, well, whatever it might take, start what
00:07:08.780would be called a consultation process or something, but move those mechanisms forward
00:07:13.740towards a real referendum. And to be honest, it might be a bit of a blessing in disguise. Keith
00:07:18.240Wilson said the quiet part out loud, the movement hasn't actually been gaining any steam in the
00:07:23.340polls and they might not have been leading to a win this fall anyway. Yeah. There's a few ways
00:07:30.120to go with this i know you said you weren't happy with the structure of this i actually do like a
00:07:34.540referendum that's not necessarily yes or no but it's more of an a or b so you know rather do you
00:07:41.080want this yes or no it's do you want option a or do you want option b i actually kind of like that
00:07:47.340i think it's a bit more neutral than a yes or no um i don't like that they use the word separation
00:07:53.060in it because separation and independence while they largely mean the same thing they don't
00:07:58.100necessarily mean the same thing because separation uh some of it's just rhetorical as i the analogy
00:08:05.260i always use is separation is like going to the bar and saying hey i'm divorced independence is
00:08:11.980like going to the bar and say hey i'm single they kind of mean the same thing but they imply
00:08:17.220something different uh separation i think could be a whole other kettle of worms including 51st
00:08:24.400state annexation is stuff that overwhelmingly people are not particularly interested in.
00:08:29.240I know there'll be a few people who are, but that's a vanishingly small group.
00:08:34.900Alberta becomes its own country with its own alliances, its own trade agreements.
00:08:38.700Separation could mean that, or it could mean other stranger options that have less mainstream appeal.
00:08:46.200um uh to uh to cory's point nigel um you know keith wilson i i think our he's kind of said
00:08:55.660part of the quiet part the quiet part out loud uh yesterday last night after uh the premier's
00:09:00.560speech that this is a safer question it's more likely to get a better showing and even possibly
00:09:09.140succeed again it's this is still an uphill battle to succeed but a lot of people who are
00:09:14.520are soft sovereignists or very frustrated federalists, depending on the terminology
00:09:21.280you're using here. This gives them permission to vote for the have a vote to have later vote or
00:09:30.660have a referendum to hold a referendum option, the kind of pro-independence side of it. It gives
00:09:35.100them a permission to vote for it without the risks involved. Voting for this doesn't mean
00:09:43.100we wake up tomorrow in the republic of alberta this is a way to send a message to advance things
00:09:48.940along to demonstrate alberta's grievances that it's upset and wants a radical change to the
00:09:53.820status quo without actually firing the shot you know without actually throwing the tea into the
00:09:59.580harbor uh where how do you take to that well i think i think you said it all there derek really
00:10:07.500and i was looking at it from the point of view of what else could screaming smith realistically do
00:10:15.420on the one hand if she does nothing just says well they are the judge the judge spoke and that0.99
00:10:20.380settles the matter that's not going to satisfy very many people on either side of the argument
00:10:26.140this at least as you said puts it out there and gives people a chance to
00:10:32.460express an opinion. I mean, whichever side you're taking, 700,000 people out of a population
00:10:41.720of four and a half million, not all of whom are old enough to vote, 700,000 people have said that
00:10:46.900they want to express their opinion on Alberta independence, either staying in Canada or
00:10:52.420going a different way. That's a sizable amount of people who would be frustrated,
00:10:58.200rightly so if they don't get that opportunity so it wasn't a perfect solution from the premier's
00:11:05.720point of view but it certainly will satisfy for now that part of her caucus which is independence
00:11:13.560minded without alienating that part of the caucus which i see to be now in the ascendant
00:11:19.800which is wearing uh well more time in the very least but probably a pro calendar position
00:11:26.760so i think you know this there's some the other thing about the timing of all this very significant
00:11:33.480last friday we had a the premier had a meeting with prime minister carney they agreed something
00:11:40.680which a lot of people are pretty uh cynical about but anyway apparently if all goes well
00:11:47.000you'll get a signal on october the 1st about the pipeline whether whether there's going to be one
00:11:55.080whether it's going forward right well that's just a couple of weeks before this uh referendum vote
00:12:00.360which is still not really a referendum vote but it's a signal of how people are feeling
00:12:05.240and i would think that you'd get a pretty significant read on how albertans really feel
00:12:09.560if they believe as many will that or mr carney's word something is being done and it'll be good
00:12:17.000um we'll see how keen they are to pursue the independence track i i think actually that's
00:12:24.040going to be a significant moment for the independence movement to see where people
00:12:27.800are still with them if they think that maybe something better could come out of central
00:12:31.240canada after all so anyone can pick up on this one um i i come back to an earlier point i made
00:12:41.720that the courts by making this bizarre ruling that uh the duty to consult indigenous groups
00:12:50.520has to take place before the vote, they have maybe unintentionally gutted the Clarity Act
00:12:58.560and gutted the Supreme Court of Canada's late 1990s secession reference case,
00:13:05.740which required that to begin the process of a province seceding or becoming independent,
00:13:12.880that there must be a clear majority on a clear question.
00:13:16.160And because they have refused to allow a referendum on a clear question, they have essentially thrown us back to where we were with Quebec's two independence referendums or quasi sovereignty referendums, which is kind of the point here.
00:13:36.460um very much to its credit the alberta independence movement has had no truck or trade with
00:13:41.920these weird convoluted questions that we saw in quebec both i think first in 19
00:13:48.1401980 or whatnot with rennie levesque circa 1980 uh which was this long convoluted essentially it
00:13:56.280was a paragraph saying you know blah blah blah blah blah and uh sovereignty and association
00:14:03.280very convoluted uh and then a still convoluted although less so but still quite messy question
00:14:11.480asked in 1995 the one that nearly passed with 49.9 percent um alberta's independence movement
00:14:18.760has said we don't want any part of that those are mushy questions they're wishy-washy maybe
00:14:23.580maybe it helps get you a higher vote turnout on your side but we want to be clear does alberta
00:14:29.020want to be independent or not very clear to its credit and the court by mucking with this has
00:14:36.160said you can't have that question kind of necessitating alberta then to have these more
00:14:41.000convoluted indirect questions sorry i put it to any of you uh has the supreme court of canada
00:14:50.540gutted its own decisions here and thrown us back into quebec style weird convoluted unclear
00:14:56.680questions. Well, let me pick up on this, Derek, because I think what Judge Shania Leonard did1.00
00:15:04.440was actually establish the Supreme Court as a piece of government as opposed to a judicial
00:15:11.120proceeding. And I think for anybody who's seriously interested in the politics of the
00:15:16.040country, that's a tremendously important decision that she made there because she's no longer
00:15:22.740arbitrating the actions of parliament she has actually inserted herself into the whole decision
00:15:32.660making process she's not well that's not a new thing our courts have been doing that
00:15:36.580really ever since uh the charter uh in the constitution act in 1984. 82 knows very well
00:15:44.740that by making the decision that she made which many people think is highly questionable she has
00:15:51.940effectively punted that referendum into some time in the next 20 years which was her whole goal now
00:15:59.460that is a governmental action that is something if that's how people feel about it that's something
00:16:05.860that the parliament of canada should have had the guts to uh bring forward the the the clarity act
00:16:12.260and propose an amendment and say no we're not going to do this anymore then the judge could
00:16:17.140or trade whether that was properly done,
00:16:19.600but for the judge to simply rewrite the Constitution,
00:17:23.860it contradicted the Supreme Court in the secession reference case.
00:17:31.680So this is not just a court against parliament
00:17:34.920or a court against a provincial legislature.
00:17:38.240It is a court against the Supreme Court.
00:17:42.180And so we're left because of this contradictory ruling.
00:17:46.760So the Supreme Court says you have to have a clear majority on a clear question.
00:17:50.640And then the federal court here, a Trudeau appointed judge, the federal court says, but you're not allowed to have a clear question.
00:17:59.440So this leaves you either with no question or a convoluted question.
00:18:03.920And then that convoluted question, the Supreme Court would then say, very unwightly, is not legitimate grounds to begin the process of negotiating independence.
00:18:15.740So is it fair to say then that this court has essentially thrown us back into the pre-secession Supreme Court reference case landscape where it's just kind of a wild west and it's forcing us to have a convoluted Quebec-style question on a referendum?
00:18:33.920yeah it changed the requirements and inserted a poison pill into it but it is temporary or what
00:18:41.320we'll see about temporary there's another level now that this is going to go up when it goes into
00:18:45.600appeal and from my understanding the appeals court will have three justices looking at it and they
00:18:51.860will be basically judging the judgment and this could become more nuanced and there's a better
00:18:58.640chance that they're going to look at this and say no you didn't have the authority or this wasn't
00:19:03.820legitimate to be able to override a prior Supreme Court reference case where so much time and effort
00:19:10.040and dedication was put into it. Or maybe they'll hold it up. If they hold it up, then this is going
00:19:15.520to go all the way to the Supreme Court. The other wild card, and I'm surprised with how silent
00:19:19.580they've been so far, though, is Quebec. You know that the sovereigntyist movement over there
00:19:23.540can't be impressed with this. And, you know, they may not have a majority support for independence
00:19:30.160in Quebec right now, but even soft independent supporters and so on don't like being told you
00:19:34.500aren't allowed to consider it, whether it's Alberta or in Quebec. And Justice Leonard might
00:19:39.840not care if she infuriates Quebecers, but I suspect a higher level of court might take those
00:19:44.580kinds of things into consideration before changing the rules on what a province may or may not do
00:19:49.160under the Clarity Act. I'd like to get back into the speech itself last night, Derek, and for the
00:19:57.400first time Smith coming out solidly on the side of Canada. She said that she's always been in
00:20:04.120favor of a sovereign Alberta within Canada. But for the first time, she said that she will be
00:20:10.540voting to stay in Canada. So is she positioning herself to be Captain Canada for the referendum?
00:20:17.860Is she going to join forces with Jason Kenney, as weird as that could be? And will those two be the
00:20:54.400radicals, shall I call them, on the independent
00:20:58.180because they've clearly rejected her. Oh, you've been talking about Corey.
00:21:03.400I'm one of those 30s. Now there's talk
00:21:06.320about doing the same thing to Smith as they did to
00:21:10.320Kenny and getting individual constituencies to declare
00:21:13.780non-confidence, and I think they need 22 or 23 of
00:21:18.240different constituencies to do that, and then that would force
00:21:22.000uh leadership review and we all remember jason kenny just barely squeaking by but
00:21:27.200but realizing that it wasn't good enough and uh and he had to resign so i guess well let's remember
00:21:33.040he he rigged it several times they changed the rules multiple times as they knew they were going
00:21:37.280to fail so that he cheated just to get like 52 percent or whatever 53 i'm not sure exactly what
00:21:43.280it was but they cheated just to get that much uh so let's be clear he didn't he didn't actually win
00:21:49.360But yeah, I take your point. I want to get into Dave's point further, Corey. Smith has, I can zoom out for a second. She is keenly aware that no Alberta Conservative Premier has completed a single term since Ralph Klein in 2004.
00:22:08.960I was in high school when that happened. She is very aware of it. She very much wants to break that curse and be the first conservative premier to at least finish a single term, quite an accomplishment.
00:22:22.260and she knows that the threat is not primarily from the NDP it is always from the right populist
00:22:30.280flank of her own party and she has quite masterfully kept that flank in the party now
00:22:40.060it's not universally independence it's as I said it's right populist so it's a grab bag of issues
00:22:44.580there's a Venn diagram there's all sorts of things and you know it the energy behind it was against
00:22:50.240covid restrictions at a time but a lot of those people were also independence now independence is
00:22:55.320the issue at the fore of it um so i i know that uh i think we saw you know some of the guys on
00:23:03.440maybe some of the harder edge of the independence movement we had jeff raff david parker they're
00:23:09.540calling for the overthrow of smith here um i'm not sure how representative that is of the movement
00:23:15.800more broadly. I know Parker called for the overthrow of Smith at her last leadership
00:23:20.260review. She still got like 93, circa 93%. So it didn't seem to have really any impact0.83
00:23:26.580then. Wrath, I don't know, maybe he's got more pull. I don't know. But this question
00:23:36.900is not going to satisfy a lot of people in the independence movement, obviously, because
00:23:40.720it's not a clear question. But her hands are largely tied by the courts until this gets0.90
00:23:44.700through the appellate stage so she's given this as a sort of amuse-bouche or an appetizer to0.92
00:23:51.080keep something going at least in the meantime at least let Albertans speak out on the direction
00:23:58.760they want to go if not the decision itself do you think that is going to be enough to keep most of
00:24:05.560the independence camp happy with her leadership supporting her continuing as premier or do you
00:24:12.080think this uh is not going to be enough and actually opens up a threat to her leadership
00:24:16.500yeah i i think that could be wrong i mean it is true that the threat always comes from the right
00:24:22.900and she's got to watch that flank but they're the same vocal actors a minority within a minority
00:24:28.360that have been screaming about her for a couple of years now and as you said a number of those
00:24:32.480same actors were very active in trying to get a negative leadership review years ago and they
00:24:37.400garnered 93% support for. Speaking anecdotally, I mean, I've been speaking at a lot of those public
00:24:42.900meetings lately, and I didn't get home till two in the morning last night from one of them up in
00:24:46.140Round Hill, which was a good opportunity actually to speak to some people on the ground. And you
00:24:51.800know, when you get face to face with people, and that's exactly the sort of discussion we were all
00:24:56.960having last night, people aren't necessarily thrilled with where things have gone or how they
00:25:00.580have. And they'd like to see, you know, more movement towards independence. But I'm not seeing
00:25:05.580the inclination to get out the torches and pitchforks for premier smith at that point even
00:25:09.980if they're not fully happy with her i think it's more of a vocal element on social media of a few
00:25:17.020rather than representative of the whole who might have a bit more of a pragmatic streak or like
00:25:21.660other actions smith is done she still can't avoid it i think that's why she's you know if there was
00:25:27.740no risk at all i think she would just avoid having a referendum altogether she had to offer some kind
00:25:32.060of bone and this is what it was whether it'll be enough to satisfy i think it will but we'll see
00:25:37.340i guess in coming weeks uh nigel i'd like your take and maybe dave as well on the other side
00:25:45.660here smith has been walking the most incredible tightrope i have ever seen a politician walk
00:25:52.380and she has she has thus far successfully succeeded but the the headlines across canada
00:25:59.660uh yesterday uh last night and in the evening was alberta's having more or less an independence
00:26:07.020referendum ish and being she is denounced as a traitor uh despite her saying that she would
00:26:14.460vote to stay in canada but she thinks this question needs to be settled the people of
00:26:18.300alberta need to speak she doesn't want this to preoccupy us for all time we have to be able to
00:26:22.300to move forward in one direction or another. The UCP is a weird coalition right now. It's got
00:26:31.340a majority of its voters, and probably even bigger majority of its members are Alberta
00:26:37.460nationalists, broadly speaking, but probably, but independents as well. But there's a big minority
00:26:45.440of federalists who still vote UCP. There's a big minority of federalists who are still members of
00:26:51.000the ucp i think the higher up the food chain of the party you go the more federalist it gets and
00:26:55.700the lower to the grassroots you get the more the more nationalist it is um cory spoke on on the
00:27:02.980nationalist side about if it's enough does this go too far do you think to keep most federalists
00:27:09.380who are in the ucp uh from breaking into open revolt against her because i i she uh she's she's0.99
00:27:17.640facing uh this is kind of her schlieffen plan she's trying to fight on two fronts and strike
00:27:23.620one quickly before she can go after the other and uh she's getting it from the federalist side she's
00:27:30.440getting it from uh you know obviously the left wing you know the nanshiite she's getting it from
00:27:36.120the federal liberals uh jason kenny has measured his language not to go after her personally he
00:27:43.600goes after the movement and his criticisms of her have been indirect and tactile uh but other
00:27:49.460proxies around him have have gone after her directly and you've got people in the ucp nate
00:27:55.520horner guys like that who are no longer in cabinet who have spoken against there being a referendum
00:28:01.320but have not gone after her directly where do you think the risk is for her with federalists
00:28:09.040in her party right now as a potential risk to her leadership,
00:28:15.140I don't think that's very strong at all, Derek.
00:28:18.120And the reason that I would say that is that if she has declared,
00:28:22.180and she has, that she is pro-Canada as opposed to pro-Alberta independence,
00:28:27.740she is in sync with the larger part of the opinion in Alberta.
00:28:33.540I mean, the most optimistic polls, and Corey, by all means,
00:28:37.680correct me if i'm off by a few digits but the most optimistic polls that i have seen in support of
00:28:44.560alberta independence are less than 40 percent which means that 60 percent of the people polled
00:28:53.520are pro canada and she has aligned herself with that faction so if this ever comes to a
00:28:59.840uh real election issue then she has got those people who might not otherwise have been
00:29:07.760supporters of the ucp on her side maybe not all vote for her but at least they're not
00:29:13.920well but that's not where i'm going with this question um also i would say i wouldn't call the
00:29:18.240other side necessarily pro canada it involves a lot of people who hate canada tear down the
00:29:22.000statues of sir john mcdonald james the anthem i would call those people federalists uh but i
00:29:29.440take your point i know i know you're going but i know my point is um yes she has declared that
00:29:35.440she's on the federalist side she'll vote federalist in the referendum but the federalists
00:29:41.840are pretty outraged that the referendum is taking place anyway even though 400 000 of them signed a1.00
00:29:47.840petition demanding a referendum on this uh i mean uh play stupid games win stupid prizes is uh is0.99
00:29:54.020the warning i'd have for them but um they're outraged that she's called the referendum to0.99
00:29:59.280begin with um so even though she's said she'll vote on the federalist side she is proceeding
00:30:05.480with the referendum and they're angry about that referendum so that's where i i'm asking i want
00:30:12.200your opinion on if there's a threat from the federalists within the ucp that she has from
00:30:17.320their perspective pandered to the nationalists uh that she has uh facilitated them and let this go
00:30:24.080on too far by allowing a referendum to begin with well 24 hours after the event there probably will
00:30:29.180be some anger but as they think about it they'll realize it wasn't really much else that she could
00:30:33.640have done how would they have felt if she had done nothing probably well the issue remains
00:30:38.300unresolved you've got to get well that's that's what they say they want they want her to do1.00
00:30:41.860nothing yeah well what was your cute phrase there silly arguments stupid play stupid games win1.00
00:30:50.240stupid prizes no this is this has to be dealt with i mean you may be a federalist but you can't1.00
00:30:58.060And just say that when 37%, 40% of your neighbors think very differently to you, that this is something that the premier of the province would just overlook, carry on as if nothing had happened, it needs to be dealt with.1.00
00:31:11.760And this actually, in terms of the phrasing of the referendum question, is about as benign as it could get if you are a federalist.
00:31:22.020But just to remind us all, the question is, should Alberta remain a province of Canada
00:31:33.760or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process?
00:31:36.940Well, you know, if you're a Federalist, get up there and vote the way you feel.