In this episode of The Cory Morgan Show, Cory talks about the Alberta Prosperity Project, the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and the impending U.S. Referendum on Alberta s place in Canada.
00:02:07.120The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
00:02:10.940Yeah, undrip. I like that. It's got drip in it.
00:02:13.880Probably, you know, it talks about how good that is.
00:02:16.920It was a resolution adopted by the United Nations in 2007.
00:02:20.780Canada was still under sane government at that time.
00:02:24.340It was one of the few UN members actually voted against it, but Canada shredded those pretenses
00:02:29.620of sanity in 2015 and endorsed UNDRIP in 2016. Now the nation's paying a terrible price for that
00:02:36.800endorsement. The UNDRIP is not legally binding. Its principles, though, have contributed to the
00:02:42.920catastrophic Indigenous policy Canada has been enduring the last 10 years. UNDRIP isn't just
00:02:49.660an aspirational document that could be ignored. Provinces actually have to get up now and denounce
00:02:55.040this thing, openly oppose recognizing the plan. This document entrenches a sense of victimhood
00:03:00.500and entitlement within a minority population that's already a socioeconomic basket case within
00:03:05.780Canada. Reserve corruption and appalling living conditions are never going to be addressed in a
00:03:10.720country binding itself with the absurd mandates of UNDRIP. To begin with, UNDRIP calls for the
00:03:15.160full autonomy and self-government of Indigenous people on reserves.
00:03:19.040Well, that sounds dandy, except that all efforts of self-government
00:03:22.240within Canada's reserve system have been an abject failure.
00:03:25.780Under-inspired Trudeau to remove the provisions for fiscal oversight
00:03:30.020on Native reserves, and the results have been predictable.
00:03:32.340Blank checks given to bans have not led to improvement of any conditions
00:03:35.320on the reserves, except for those sitting on top of the local hierarchy.
00:03:38.380People are living in squalor while a bandit class lives the high life,
00:03:41.580and there's no way to correct the issue.
00:03:42.840Giving all the authority to the reserves for self-government while giving them none of the responsibility for it has failed the people living on the reserves and the people off the reserves who have to pay the bills.
00:03:53.520UNDRIP affirms Indigenous people's rights to traditional lands and resources.
00:03:58.540The traditional land refers to every square inch in North America.
00:04:02.500This path has led to the crippling of economic development in the resource sectors across the country.
00:04:07.600Indigenous leaders feel they have the right to block all developments while extorting fees for any developments that go ahead.
00:04:13.640It's killed employment opportunities for Indigenous people in remote regions, and it's hampered Canada's productivity.
00:04:19.420Wondering why our GDP per capita is in free fall when compared to other developed countries?
00:10:15.540Sometimes they invest in rocket launchers and helicopters and things like that so that they can better entrench their governance methods out there.
00:14:24.400They've dragged their feet all the way till today before even giving them the report.
00:14:30.180The report that millions were probably spent to create that was supposed to answer some of these questions.
00:14:35.620and city council has to beg and fight and threaten to get it. Some heads have got to roll.
00:14:43.700This is nuts. And yeah, Paradoxi saying, thank goodness, Gondek announced, what was it,
00:14:49.86080 billion for climate crisis nonsense. Yeah, something like that. The last mayor,
00:14:54.140she was hung up on, you know, again, a climate emergency and spending billions and billions of
00:14:58.600dollars on that. And she did nothing with infrastructure. And then for 11 years prior to
00:15:02.640her. Nahed Nenshi did nothing on it because nobody wants a water pipe. They want public art.
00:15:08.300They want a city park. They want to have nice, pretty things to talk about that they can put
00:15:13.460their name on. They can put a little bronze plaque or do a ribbon cutting or something.
00:15:18.580And these things, you know, aren't, water pipes don't provide that sort of goodness for them.
00:15:24.680So either way, now it's still gushing. Calgarians are still on water restrictions,
00:15:29.880But some of the word out of the mayor's office with Jeremy Farkas, the mayor there, is that, yeah, you know, they're going to have to basically replace that entire line.
00:19:03.360And that means fighting with city administration and ensuring that things are going to get done, that the city administration answers to him and council.
00:19:16.420There are many administrators and managers and people who would love an upper six-figure jobs with massive pensions and massive vacation time and heated parking spaces and would do that job far better than the dead weight built up in City Hall.
00:19:30.860so let's hope that this comes to a head and then Jeremy's talk isn't just talking tough provincially
00:19:37.340as well and I'm not seeing it that much and I know you get a new premier you get a new prime
00:19:41.720minister they don't want to go to war with the civil service but you know what you need to
00:19:44.740you have to I'm not sure where Mitch is supposed to be here by now but he did text a while ago
00:19:51.220saying he was going to be in hopefully it's just some tech problems he'll come in soon
00:19:54.200so let me talk about the issue a little bit with that as we're in that segment
00:19:58.260So Mitch Sylvester is one of the principals of the Alberta Prosperity Project.
00:20:03.380And the referendum, I mean, it's been a long road to get there.
00:20:07.460The APP has been holding meetings, it's been gathering names, it's been, you know,
00:20:14.020organizing, getting ready for this for years.
00:20:17.460And they've gathered the names of hundreds of thousands of people.
00:24:52.840Well, the bottom line is just overwhelm them.
00:24:54.160You know, when, when one out of a hundred people who have actually signed up and gone through the process and gotten accredited and started petitioning, 99 out of a hundred are genuine, that 1% aren't going to be able to do that much damage. They're just wasting their own time and energy. In fact, energy that they would better be able to spend campaigning for the other side, if that's what they really believe. So, yeah, let them piddle around. I mean, you want to watch for them. You want to stop it.
00:25:19.480I worry about some of the other things. I worry about some of the other stunts that can be pulled
00:25:24.140off. And we're going to see it all in this next eight, nine months. One will be, and I think a
00:25:30.160danger zone is the open microphones at town hall meetings. So people can go up and say whatever
00:25:38.920they please, as they should be able to. Now, if I were looking to sabotage, get up, take that
00:25:45.860microphone, claim to be a supporter and say something absolutely horrific. Say something
00:25:51.480that will just mortify and horrify everybody else and claim to be speaking on behalf of the
00:25:56.240independence movement. That's how you can do a lot of damage. I guess I shouldn't be giving tips
00:26:00.000out to other people, but the bottom line is if we're going to prevent these sort of things,
00:26:02.360we've got to watch for it. If somebody gets up there and says, we want to bring back slavery
00:26:06.700or something stupid like that, you know, whatever, you know, there's all sorts of things people could
00:26:09.700see, right? The room has to denounce, take that person out of the room. I'm not talking about
00:26:15.340assaulting them, but get them out and make it clear. You are not welcome here. Whatever they
00:26:19.040just said, that is not acceptable. That's not welcome here. Get the hell out of here. We're
00:26:22.680here about independence. Not that crap. It's funny. I had some discussion just this morning
00:26:30.120on semantics with people because some people will say, oh, well, that's not free speech. Even if the
00:26:34.060guy says something beyond the pale, we should allow him to say it. No, you shouldn't. This is
00:26:38.060a campaign. Everybody has the right to say things, but they don't have the right to your microphone
00:26:42.160to do it. So that person can go out and say it down the street. It's not a matter of political
00:26:47.380correctness. It's a campaign now. All of those things are going to reflect on the whole movement.
00:26:52.800Kiko Stocks, one of the commenters there, said media will run with it too. Exactly. They're
00:26:57.300watching. They're waiting. So if some whack job gets up and says something beyond the pale,
00:27:02.580that's what they're going to report on. Something I've ranted a bit about, like last spring when
00:27:07.960the independence movement was, it was going, you know, really exploding. I did a couple of, I guess
00:27:12.320I do interviews if people ask, whatever, wherever it might be. I did a long one with the walrus,
00:27:17.740long one, scheduled time to sit down with that guy. And in the end of it, you know, my name never
00:27:23.500came up in his big, long extended piece even once. He dedicated 40 minutes talking with me.
00:27:30.400Perhaps I was just too boring to be worth quoting. Fair enough. I think the reality is he was hoping,
00:27:36.060because if you looked in his article, it was very, very negative. He was hoping I'd say something to
00:27:39.500be able to hang us with. And I didn't give him that. So I just didn't get in there. Likewise,
00:27:44.140when I was at a rally in Red Deer and I spoke with a person who was there from the Washington Post
00:27:51.180and same thing spoke for about 20 minutes there. And then the post put out a hit piece about the
00:27:56.540lunatics and so on on the movement and quoted a whole bunch of other people and I never popped up.
00:28:01.980But the thing is, as long as we're giving them, I guess, sane comments, they won't be able to
00:28:07.140write anything. Don't give them low-hanging fruit. Don't give them ammunition. Somebody came into an
00:28:11.700area, screamed, said something beyond the pale, denounce it, get past it, move that person on and
00:28:17.340out. And yeah, sure, some of the media run with it anyways, but you'll show them, no, we didn't put
00:28:21.860up with that. The same sort of crap like we saw during the convoy with the swastika flag that
00:28:26.000sprung out of nowhere. Nobody knew where it came from. A few pictures showed up and nobody else
00:28:31.180saw it, but of course that picture is still used even today. These are the tricks they're going to
00:28:35.460do. We can't stop all of them, but you can try your hardest to counter them. Another aspect when
00:28:43.480it comes to moderating, a little more commenter pointing out too, too many people take the mic
00:28:48.820to air their personal grievances and waste everyone's time. And that's true too. That's
00:28:52.320up to the moderators in the room. The worst damage those people will do though is typically just
00:28:56.040boring people and, you know, wasting time, but at least it won't do heavy damage. Getting back to
00:29:01.740what I was talking about, a discussion I had online, I spoke with somebody who was using the
00:29:06.100term separatist. I just politely, I just said, look, we're campaigning. Most independent supporters
00:29:10.920don't, just don't use that term. We use independence, we use sovereign test because
00:29:14.260there's negative connotations with separatist. You got to remember, we're thinking on the basis
00:29:20.560of a campaign. Are you thinking of winning or not? Oh, say whatever the hell I want. Oh,
00:29:25.260he got all uptight, or she actually, and all wound up, called me all sorts of things, said I was new
00:29:29.140to the independence movement. That was pretty funny, actually. Look, you can say whatever you
00:29:33.460want, but do you want to win or not? You don't hear the pro-choice movement saying they're pro-death
00:29:40.160or pro-abortion even. They say pro-choice because you get support with something that's positive.
00:29:47.480Tar sands. You want to know, as soon as you read an article or hear from an activist, if they oppose
00:29:52.660the energy development of Alberta, they'll say tar sands instead of oil sands. Little thing,
00:29:56.960minor thing. But why? Why do they do that? Because one's negative and one's positive.
00:30:02.000And it means something. It works towards something. So separatists, people think of Basque
00:30:09.220separatists, people think of Georgian separatists. They think of a lot of separatist movements
00:30:12.480or even the FLQ in Quebec where they get violent, where they blew people up, where they were crazy,
00:30:16.600where they were communist. Independence is positive. Sovereignty is positive.
00:30:22.660separatism is negative. I'm not trying to nag people into political correctness. I'm just saying
00:30:26.920that this is the difference with this campaign, because this doesn't have a single leader
00:30:32.180individual speaking for the whole thing. This is a campaign of tens of thousands of Albertans
00:30:36.800getting out, volunteering, going to the doors. And a lot of them have never done it before.
00:30:42.020And they don't need to be perfectly politically correct, but I'm just passing along
00:30:45.620that we need to look at things from the lens of a campaigner, which means you always want
00:30:50.940to bring people into the movement. But if you're going to dig in your heels and give me the middle
00:30:55.620finger and say, I'm going to use that word as much as I want to and scream it from the hilltops. I
00:30:59.020mean, I can't stop you. You have the right to, but you aren't doing the movement any favors.
00:31:04.980Either way, these meetings, you know, that that's a good way to get people together and help train
00:31:08.620them. And there's a lot of that training. Somebody else, a commenter had asked, I'll say it again.
00:31:14.000It's stayfreealberta.com. That's where to get the information on petitioning and how to do it. And
00:31:20.540all of that good stuff. Again, I wish Mitch had made it, but apparently
00:31:25.220he's tied up. All right. Well, let's talk about some
00:31:29.220of the other stuff that's going on, though. As Dave said, so much going on
00:36:11.760And that's what I just kind of mentioned.
00:36:13.500There is a lot of Alberta oil does get there.
00:36:16.260Ironically, the bulk of it goes over and then south into the United States and then back up into Sarnia for refining.
00:36:23.580a lot of it, but they also buy a whole pile of oil, yes, from Saudi Arabia, from Venezuela.
00:36:30.320Tankers come up and down the East Coast, all over the place, getting foreign oil in while we shut in
00:36:35.580Western Canada's oil in Alberta, which is part of why Albertans are pissed to the point where
00:36:42.860one in three, and hopefully growing, you know, more, are going to be looking to just say to
00:36:49.740heck with Canada. They've had enough of it. But what's going on out there too? As Dave said,
00:36:56.500I mean, we're joking about it. And Mike said, but where's Trump going next? What is going to go on
00:37:02.660next? Is he going to go into Colombia? Is he going to go into Iran? Or Greenland? And that
00:37:09.300one, I got to admit, it's got me a little stumped. Why? Why are you poking that hornet's nest?
00:37:13.480There's very little for strategic use of that spot.
00:37:19.400I mean, if it was some big world war, rest assured, the American forces could come and just take the few developed spots of that island in a heartbeat if they felt they had to.
00:37:27.900Nobody else was setting up a base or something that was threatening Greenland.
00:37:31.240And it's not like Greenland has a whole pile of oil or fish or anything that really makes it worth taking.
00:37:38.260Though, I mean, I guess if I was the person who understood what Trump is going to do, I should be buying, you know, lottery tickets or betting on racehorses or something.
00:37:46.240Obviously, you know, I've got a brilliant ability for prognostication.
00:37:53.700All we do know is things are upset, unpredictable and unusual going on right now.
00:38:00.460and then likewise so some people have talked about it if if trump made a move on greenland
00:38:07.040for some reason like he's saying though he says stuff all the time that could undercut nato because
00:38:13.200you know we're going through denmark and things like that if nato falls apart ukraine's in a big
00:38:18.400pile of trouble i know there's people with different views on the ukraine russia thing fine
00:38:21.800but then look at what the americans are doing as well the ship dave talked about that was
00:38:27.000intercepted with British help was bringing oil to Russia. So if they're cutting off energy
00:38:36.360exports to Russia, just what is going on? Prayer Handel saying Greenland has a lot of critical
00:38:44.180minerals. Yeah, a bit. Not enough worth turning the world upside down to try and take it though.
00:38:48.200I mean, it'd be easier just to buy it off them. If they're mineable and worth it, just buy it off.