Western Standard - Western Standard： Uncensored

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Good evening.

00:01:21.520 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard.

00:01:25.060 And you're watching the inaugural episode of Western Standard Uncensored.

00:01:29.060 Uncensored. This is a new political panel that we've put together of some of the veterans of

00:01:35.060 Alberta conservative politics. I'm joined in the studio today by Bruce McAllister. Bruce and I go

00:01:42.020 back a bit, as do some of the other panelists who will be joining us. Bruce was a wild rose in LA

00:01:48.800 back in the day, still very busy fighting the good fight, and he's going to be the moderator of

00:01:53.460 this show, Western Standard Uncensored. Before we get to that, though, I want to thank all of

00:01:58.200 our Western Standard members for your continued support. Without you, we cannot continue to do

00:02:02.980 the work we're doing. If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, however, I'd like you

00:02:06.860 to go to westernstandardonline.com, click on membership, and you can try it free for 15 days.

00:02:11.500 It's only $99 a year or $10 a month for uncensored, independent, government bailout-free media

00:02:19.040 focused on the issues that you're not going to see in a lot of the other mainstream media,

00:02:23.180 which is exactly what we're doing here today.

00:02:26.320 Western Standard Uncensored is about talking about the issues with people

00:02:31.060 that you're just not going to see in many other media outlets.

00:02:35.560 So with that, I'm going to put it to Bruce here, who will take it away,

00:02:38.740 tell you a bit more about the show, and introduce the panelists we've got tonight.

00:02:42.200 Good stuff. Derek, thank you. Always good to work with you.

00:02:44.800 Pleased to be in your TV studio.

00:02:46.640 It's been a while since I've been in a TV studio.

00:02:49.340 It's hot, isn't it?

00:02:50.020 It's hot. It's warm. Good evening to you at home.

00:02:52.700 Thanks for joining us. Welcome to Western Standards Uncensored. This is a political

00:02:58.160 panel with a punch, and it is our inaugural episode. As Derek mentioned, we're going to

00:03:03.680 talk about everything under the sun that matters to Albertans, frankly, and Canadians for that

00:03:09.340 matter. And it's clear that a lot of issues that make the mainstream media maybe aren't discussed

00:03:15.820 as they should be, or you could say there would be a left-leaning narrative that accompanies them.

00:03:20.980 we're going to try and break that down this panel will ask tough questions we will ask real questions

00:03:26.100 and it will be a thoughtful and thorough debate some of the things we'll talk about in upcoming

00:03:32.200 episodes vaccine passports your personal freedoms we will talk about the free alberta strategy

00:03:39.200 launched by one of our panelists tonight but tonight we're going to talk about the upcoming

00:03:44.240 equalization referendum we go to the polls on october the 18th in a municipal election

00:03:50.840 One of the questions that we're going to be asked, we're going to put up on the screen for you, concerns equalization and how Albertans should view it.

00:03:58.980 And when you get my age, you need to put these glasses on. I want to read this correctly.

00:04:03.320 Should Motion 36.2 of the Constitution Act, 1982, Parliament and the Government of Canada's commitment to the principle of making equalization payments be removed from the Constitution?

00:04:15.240 Let's meet the panelists that are going to discuss this tonight. I want to start with Bill Buick.

00:04:19.580 Bill is the executive director of Fairness Alberta.

00:04:22.460 He was the lead on policy for the Wild Rose from 2010 to 2017.

00:04:27.040 Guy we always describe as a big brain and a deep thinker.

00:04:30.580 Bill, thanks for joining us from Edmonton.

00:04:35.120 Bill is muted.

00:04:36.380 Bill's muted.

00:04:37.640 My pleasure.

00:04:38.300 He's a big brain and a big thinker.

00:04:39.720 Got it.

00:04:40.220 But he was muted.

00:04:41.440 And that's your tip, Danielle and Rob, to be not muted when I throw it to you.

00:04:46.640 And we'll go to Rob next.

00:04:47.940 Rob, you'll know, was an Airdrie MLA for a couple of terms.

00:04:51.180 He was the finance critic for the Wild Rose Party,

00:04:55.020 and he is a practicing litigator and the author of the Free Alberta Strategy.

00:05:00.200 Joining us from Airdrie, Rob, thanks for being with us.

00:05:03.480 Thanks. It's like getting the old band back together here.

00:05:05.960 This is fantastic.

00:05:07.840 It's an interesting old gathering, isn't it?

00:05:10.600 And last but not least, I'd like to introduce Danielle Smith,

00:05:13.800 the lady who probably doesn't need an introduction. 1.00

00:05:15.940 Danielle, your CV is growing by the day.

00:05:19.940 What would I say, former school board representative,

00:05:22.940 former leader of the official opposition,

00:05:25.940 broadcaster, columnist, executive director of the Alberta

00:05:30.940 Enterprise Group, and so much more.

00:05:33.940 And a lot of Albertans follow you these days on Locals,

00:05:36.940 your app, and thank you for joining us tonight.

00:05:39.940 My pleasure. Nice to see you all.

00:05:41.940 Great to see you.

00:05:42.940 Why don't we just stay right with you for the first question?

00:05:45.940 okay you've seen the question on the screen what do you make of it why should Albertans be voting

00:05:50.720 yes you know the first time I heard about this strategy I didn't think it was going to be

00:05:55.420 successful I think Brian Jean was actually the first person to mention the idea of voting on

00:05:59.180 the question of equalization and I didn't think it would be successful because here we are in

00:06:04.140 Alberta voting on what is essentially a federal spending program but I think the way the question

00:06:09.660 has been designed is very clever I've had a chance to talk with Professor Ted Morton about it

00:06:14.260 And because of various constitutional decisions that have gone through the courts in the past, my understanding is that by asking Albertans if they want to take a section out of the Constitution, it initiates a process that causes the federal government to have to take this seriously.

00:06:29.800 And it starts the national discussion.

00:06:31.960 I don't know that we'll be successful in getting equalization eliminated, but you know what?

00:06:36.720 We may be successful in getting it reformed.

00:06:38.800 All I know is if we vote no to this, we'll never even start the conversation.

00:06:41.600 That's why I am encouraging everyone I know to vote strongly yes in favor of this, because I think we do need a strong mandate for the Premier to pursue it.

00:06:51.180 Rob, you want to pick up on that? What will you say to the question in general?

00:06:55.320 Well, I mean, I think that I think it's important and I will be voting yes, obviously,

00:07:03.880 and we'll be encouraging everyone that is voting in the municipal election next Monday to tick a

00:07:12.120 box by the yes column because obviously equalization is a disaster. It's a terrible policy.

00:07:18.840 It specifically rewards poor government. It penalizes good governance. It penalizes provinces

00:07:30.440 that are full of hardworking workers that are contributing to society and to the economy and

00:07:41.540 so forth. It is literally one of the most ineffective and ridiculous programs that one 0.90

00:07:48.080 could conceive of. And yet we've somehow have this beast enshrined in our constitution. So we need 0.98

00:07:54.080 to vote yes on it. Now that said, though, I don't believe that whether we get 60% or 50% or 70%

00:08:04.760 or whatever, is that important here. And for me, this is more of a symbolic question. I think there

00:08:10.500 are more substantive things that Alberta can do to end equalization and federal transfer payments

00:08:16.720 and so forth that go far beyond this question.

00:08:20.140 But to Daniel's point, there are some legal reasons for doing this.

00:08:24.640 Will they be successful?

00:08:27.100 We'll see.

00:08:28.360 So yes, vote yes, for sure.

00:08:30.660 But, you know, there are more important things we should be doing.

00:08:34.520 Right.

00:08:34.720 And we're going to get to some of those questions.

00:08:36.360 I'm going to put you on the spot with some of that and ask you to outline some of the

00:08:40.880 in-depth analysis, I guess you could say.

00:08:43.080 Bill, do this for me.

00:08:44.160 For somebody watching tonight that maybe isn't overly familiar with it, why is this so significant?

00:08:49.780 Can you put it in layman's terms as to why Albertans should be on side with the yes vote?

00:08:55.320 Yeah, it's a rare chance for the general public to show their feelings about a specific topic.

00:09:02.680 I mean, I know a lot of people have different opinions on direct democracy.

00:09:07.380 But to my mind, when you have a chance to speak up and make your feelings known, you should take it.

00:09:13.180 and it's it's I think we can't rely on the political class to get this done for for lots

00:09:20.680 of reasons it's it's pretty easy for the federal government to ignore Albertans and it's pretty

00:09:27.360 easy for them to ignore the pre it's a chance to say no this isn't okay we're tired of of paying so

00:09:38.020 much getting so little in return and lately getting you know uh negative uh scorn and ridicule

00:09:46.500 and policies that are going to kill our uh our energy sector which is the lifeblood of our 0.82

00:09:52.340 economy so it's it's time for us to to say no this is not okay and we insist that this be addressed

00:09:59.540 i mean there's so many uh issues at the federal level that that politicians would prefer to try

00:10:04.740 and tackle before this one and so it's up to us to kind of put our foot down and say no you need

00:10:10.200 to fix this okay so we're in agreement that obviously we're sending a message to albert

00:10:15.520 pardon me to ottawa with this and albertans should send a strong message quebec obviously has

00:10:23.280 a lot of things going in its favor that alberta would like to see frankly done here

00:10:27.940 Is there a number on this, Rob? You kind of touched on it, 60, 70%. Does it matter to you

00:10:35.540 to send a strong message to Ottawa? Well, the higher percentage, the better,

00:10:42.380 obviously. I mean, if it's 70, 80%, that's going to send a stronger message than 50, 60, obviously.

00:10:49.360 But, you know, I think to Bill's and Daniel's point, I think it is important for the, I'm

00:10:56.780 assuming the legal process that's going to be commenced after the vote,

00:11:02.960 assuming that we get an over 50% vote,

00:11:06.120 to challenge whether this flawed program should be left in our Constitution.

00:11:12.000 I think for those purposes, it's important to send a good message.

00:11:16.040 Of course, we can get into whether the current premier's approval ratings

00:11:25.440 and whether whether these these other factors the wording of the question and so forth uh is such

00:11:31.440 that it's going to um be whether or not this vote will be a real indication of how of how albertans

00:11:38.720 um view equalization but that said a yes vote is is important uh but again you compared alberta to

00:11:47.760 quebec and and it's a very apt comparison because one has to ask how has quebec been so successful

00:11:54.320 in obtaining so much equalization over these years and making sure the formula is so rigged

00:11:59.120 which it is it's rigged to to favor them um and you know the reason one of the reasons is is that

00:12:05.280 they if they you know first of all their leaders have have guts and they they stand up for their

00:12:10.560 province and they do what needs to be done for for their for their people in that regard and uh and

00:12:16.960 and they made it in ottawa's best interest to capitulate to to their demands and uh

00:12:22.480 Alberta has not done that.

00:12:24.460 We have not had leadership in that area.

00:12:26.020 We don't have a viable walkaway position

00:12:28.620 that strikes fear into the hearts of Ottawa politicians.

00:12:32.760 We've been pushovers.

00:12:33.940 So hopefully this is a first step

00:12:35.580 in showing that we're not going to be pushovers

00:12:37.740 on this issue anymore.

00:12:39.960 Well, lots there to follow up on, Rob.

00:12:42.080 Pretty strong language,

00:12:43.060 and I think a lot of Albertans would share it.

00:12:45.440 Danielle, we'll go to you on some of what Rob said.

00:12:48.500 How has Quebec been so successful,

00:12:51.760 frankly in getting what they want where we have not? Isn't that the great question? Let me

00:12:57.000 reverse the answer from what you'd asked earlier as well though about how large a mandate this

00:13:03.220 needs. Let's think of the alternative is that if it doesn't have a strong mandate that'll send a

00:13:08.380 message to the Premier that this is not something that Albertans care about. I think we've all been

00:13:13.220 worried that the Premier has only tepid interest in some of the Fairness Alberta priorities whether

00:13:18.940 it's an Alberta pension plan or provincial police, you're collecting your own provincial

00:13:22.820 income taxes. And that's what I'm worried about, is that if there isn't a strong vote for this,

00:13:27.300 then there wouldn't be any motivation to go on to the next ones. And I mentioned those ones in

00:13:31.300 particular, because Quebec has looked at its powers under the Constitution. And they've been

00:13:36.600 a grown up province, they said, we're not going to have Ottawa take money from us and deliver

00:13:40.860 these services, we're going to do it ourselves. So they have their own Quebec pension plan,

00:13:44.660 they have their own provincial police, they do collect their own personal income taxes,

00:13:48.340 they have their own immigration system and i think what that's done is it's created the architecture

00:13:54.020 so that when quebec saw a sovereignty from time to time say you know what if we don't get what we

00:13:59.940 want we're out of here they actually have the structure in place that you have to take it

00:14:04.260 seriously how come alberta even if there is that question on the table why would ottawa take them

00:14:10.180 take alberta seriously if not only we don't collect our own taxes we don't have our own police

00:14:16.180 we aren't self-sufficient on pension. I think that this is really the first step of a series

00:14:23.060 of things that need to be done. But if we don't get to this first step, we're not going to be

00:14:26.180 able to follow down in the path of Quebec. And look, I'd love to see Confederation work. I'd

00:14:30.740 love to see Alberta and Quebec work together so that we both have the ability to maximize our

00:14:37.620 economic prosperity. But I will tell you this, I know the precise day that Albertans said they'd

00:14:44.260 they'd had enough with Quebec. And it was the day that Francois Legault, shortly after being elected,

00:14:49.360 said, we don't want your dirty oil. And then within, I think, a 48-hour period, there was

00:14:53.880 extra money in the equalization fund. So Quebec got an extra billion dollars. At that point,

00:14:58.280 I was still on the air, and my audience said, forget it. If they don't want to allow us the

00:15:03.340 opportunity to develop our own resources, we can't just have a pipeline of money going to Quebec.

00:15:08.080 We've got to have the question of whether we should stop this program in the first place. So

00:15:12.440 they started it but i think we have to to answer to it by saying that we've got to do something

00:15:16.600 differently yep very well communicated and i can feel people's blood boiling listening to your

00:15:21.800 answer um bill is there a number for you that's significant and do you want to pick up on the

00:15:26.440 quebec chatter no i i think given uh the you know side swipe by covid and the premier's pop

00:15:35.560 you know the turnout of what will end up be showing up for municipal polls winning it is

00:15:42.840 what's important a loss would be something that the people not interested in in our issues would

00:15:47.720 use a club to beat us over the head for the next 10 years but going back to the quebec one not to 1.00

00:15:55.240 risk the blood boiling right over but i wrote a piece in the herald a couple months ago showing

00:16:00.520 how the three biggest flaws in the program are totally stacked in quebec's favor uh the the one

00:16:06.600 is that there's this gdp growth rule so that uh as danielle noted you know that they have to spend

00:16:12.280 a certain amount more every year in the payments regardless of need regardless of how unequal we

00:16:17.400 are uh the second issue is that quebec hydro isn't properly accounted for so because quebec

00:16:23.800 subsidizes their hydro rates it makes it look like quebec hydro is much deflated and how what kind of

00:16:29.160 taxation you could get from that entity if you just bring them up to the same as toronto's prices

00:16:34.440 quebec's payment drops from 13 billion to 5 billion and the whole program shrinks about two

00:16:39.720 uh by about a third so that is a something that is an obvious thing that needs to be addressed

00:16:44.920 just treat quebec hydro as if it were charging market do what you want with the actual uh

00:16:50.040 subsidies but we're not going to pretend you're not subsidizing it when we do our formula

00:16:54.520 and uh the third one is the no accounting for difference in uh prices in each province you

00:17:00.920 can't hire a nurse in toronto or calgary for what you can hire a nurse in montreal or moncton

00:17:06.840 uh the cost of living there is so much cheaper that it the number one driver of costs and public

00:17:12.600 services is salaries and you just don't need to pay people as much in those provinces so why would

00:17:17.000 you need the same fiscal capacity to afford the same services so that's a major flaw as well you

00:17:23.400 You put those three things together and Quebec's payment goes from 13 billion to about 300 million.

00:17:28.140 It basically disappears and suddenly, oh, look, Quebec actually isn't a have-not province.

00:17:33.460 They're right around the national average.

00:17:35.620 So if we could just fix that program, get this ridiculous giant payment to Quebec out of it,

00:17:40.500 suddenly everybody's saving at least $10 billion and we're not having to fork over that kind of money

00:17:46.820 for a province who has better services than anyone else in the country.

00:17:50.940 That's good stuff, Bill.

00:17:52.360 it's actually troubling what you give us but it's good information and there are people listening

00:17:57.200 out there i think that i think we should keep in mind we'll have a lot of uh political types like

00:18:02.520 ourselves out watching our program here tonight and hopefully there's some people that aren't so

00:18:06.820 political geeks like us and maybe not married to the coverage of this stuff every day and we can

00:18:12.920 help them with some of this information and help make an informed division uh decision pardon me

00:18:18.280 let's put the question back up on the screen james if we could one more time this is the

00:18:22.100 question you're going to be asked on the ballot in the upcoming municipal election next Monday.

00:18:27.300 It's October the 18th. I guess it's this Monday. Rob, you mentioned that the system is rigged.

00:18:33.000 And I think from what Danielle and Bill said, they tend to agree. Do we have to focus on

00:18:40.180 educating more Albertans to exactly how this works and how much better our province might run if

00:18:46.240 this formula were straightened out? Very good point. I mean, obviously, this just deals with

00:18:51.560 equalization formula itself and of course the when you hear these numbers such as alberta has

00:18:57.960 transferred uh 600 billion dollars more in tax revenues to ottawa than it's received back from

00:19:03.720 ottawa government's services over the past 60 years and we're talking about that number we're

00:19:08.760 talking about not just the equalization formula but also just the federal transfer scheme whereby

00:19:13.400 we all pay our taxes to ottawa and they just continually find more and more interesting ways

00:19:19.000 to uh to take that the majority of those monies and and put them into uh into quebec and uh for

00:19:25.080 various boat buying schemes and things like that so so it's a big it's a huge issue um i personally

00:19:31.960 uh you know i think that albertans um understand that we're getting host they understand that we

00:19:39.160 are getting the short end of the stick in confederation um in in a big way uh what i

00:19:45.400 think is really alarming to them is that um you know there's i call it the tale of two trudeaus

00:19:52.040 the first trudeau he he actually the national energy program people don't know this but it was

00:19:56.920 actually it was actually the mission of it although it didn't really have the intended

00:20:01.560 effect was to grow the energy industry for energy security in canada and to of course milk alberta

00:20:07.000 for all it was worth uh while that was happening uh not a popular program had all kinds of

00:20:12.280 unintended poor consequences but that's very different from the second trudeau justin trudeau

00:20:17.960 whose stated goal is not just to suck us dry with with these continued equalization payments and

00:20:24.440 and this law transfer program but it's also to actually phase out of existence our primary

00:20:31.960 industry in the hundreds of thousands of jobs that that creates in this province and across canada

00:20:37.400 So we're looking, so on that backdrop, I think it's important to note that, you know, this question is just, we're talking about one piece here.

00:20:49.420 We're talking about kind of the sucking Alberta out of its resources dry piece.

00:20:54.300 That's an important piece.

00:20:55.920 But what Albertans, I think, are starting to wake up to and what they should be waking up to now is the realization that we have a bit of an existential crisis on our hands.

00:21:03.480 We are not going to be a fiscally viable province, a financially economically viable province, if we do not push back on the intention of the current government, which is to eliminate our most important industry and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that it creates.

00:21:19.960 Danielle, does the question go far enough?

00:21:21.740 Well, I think Rob is dead right. I mean, we need to go much further. We need to realize what the existential crisis is for Alberta, because I think we thought, well, after the NEP, we'll just keep our heads down and they'll allow us to keep on making money.

00:21:37.180 They'll siphon some off. But as long as we're wealthy and we can take care of our stuff, it's all right.

00:21:42.480 But as soon as they start attacking our principal industry, we have to ask where it ends.

00:21:46.300 So we thought initially, OK, well, they're going after coal. Fine. We'll phase out coal and we'll adopt natural gas at our electricity power plants.

00:21:54.660 And then it was, oh, well, now they're going after the oil sands. OK, well, let's figure out how we can do carbon capture on the oil sands.

00:22:00.360 Well, now they're going after natural gas. And I don't think that we should be cavalier about what's happening in Quebec.

00:22:06.320 They have passed a policy essentially making it impossible to extract any oil and gas resources from their province.

00:22:14.200 And when you look at how much natural gas assets they have, and it's significant, the very idea that they would hamstring a sector of their economy and then turn around to the rest of the country and say, oh, by the way, we find ourselves a little bit short.

00:22:27.960 Can you just transfer money from the rest of the country?

00:22:29.740 is appalling, number one. But the second part is that if that is what they're going to do in Quebec,

00:22:34.880 is pass policies that they can tell the world that the Glasgow COP26 conference is coming up

00:22:40.960 in a couple of weeks' time, that this is the direction Canada is going, you better believe

00:22:45.300 that Justin Trudeau is going to look at ways of putting pressure on other regions to cancel

00:22:50.400 exploration and development permits as well. So Quebec has always led the country in this

00:22:55.960 discussion. It's one of the reasons why we have such a huge divide between the public opinion in

00:23:01.180 Alberta and Quebec. We fundamentally disagree on how we develop our energy resources, and they have

00:23:07.040 always had the upper hand politically, they've had the upper hand financially, and now they're

00:23:11.280 taking it one step further. So Rob is absolutely right. We need to push back. This is the first

00:23:15.480 step, but there's so many more reasons why we have to make sure that this conversation

00:23:18.860 advances from here. All right. You're watching Uncensored, a political panel that gets straight

00:23:25.460 to the punch on western standard what i just heard from you danielle was a yes vote is absolutely

00:23:31.360 necessary while it won't get us where we need to be it'll at least get us moving in the right

00:23:35.820 direction bill would you concur yeah i uh i mean a lot of people fixate on the the constitutional

00:23:43.400 side of this and you know uh i have a plan to hopefully get five provinces with 70 of the

00:23:52.000 population on board with this because they're all paying into it and getting nothing. But there's

00:23:56.040 no way we're getting seven provinces on board, given how much some of them are used to getting

00:24:01.160 those no-strings-attached checks. But the point of it is just that when the Supreme Court was

00:24:08.980 clear in 1998 that when one individual province expresses that they want to see constitutional

00:24:15.600 change. The quote said, there's a corresponding duty on the participants to Confederation to

00:24:23.240 engage in constitutional discussions in order to acknowledge and address democratic expressions of

00:24:28.360 a desire for change. So to my mind, it's the key that, you know, they could have had an easier

00:24:33.520 number or a higher result, probably if they just said, do you think equalization is unfair,

00:24:37.040 but it wouldn't meet that threshold. Once we do meet that threshold, those negotiations can

00:24:42.640 sort of put everything on the table including some of these other issues you know one of them

00:24:48.740 is why did the federal government need to take so many tax dollars compared to the provinces

00:24:53.600 why are provincial taxes half the size of our federal taxes that's just the way that the federal

00:24:59.740 taxing power and the tax room that the federal government has means that the provinces all have

00:25:04.700 to beg and plead to get the funding they need to provide their services when as a taxpayer i would

00:25:10.260 much prefer, you know, be switched and have double my money going to the provincial government

00:25:15.500 where health and education and the justice system and all the things that actually cost

00:25:19.260 money are, compared to the federal government where they just use it to basically slush

00:25:24.160 money around and follow political pursuits that are extra constitutional.

00:25:29.880 Bill, I want to stay with this for a minute. You've been debating academics, frankly, on

00:25:34.600 this issue for the last couple of months as we lead up to the vote the academic argument and

00:25:41.300 some would say the liberal argument is that uh this question isn't right it's not going to get

00:25:46.720 us where we need to be uh the emotional argument and the one that most albertans get when it's

00:25:53.700 presented to them is that we need to go in this direction did you do anything you want to address

00:25:57.480 that you're hearing from some of the critics uh on this debate they seem to be bending over

00:26:03.800 backwards to be either uh purposely uh misleading folks or just being utterly obtuse because i feel

00:26:11.240 like a lot of them it's not so much that they're they're partisan it's not their partisanship it's

00:26:15.560 that they just don't trust uh people to get it uh they think they're afraid of people getting

00:26:22.120 emotional and and acting on something without you know having a phd level uh of understanding on it

00:26:28.920 and i'm you know i'm sorry but that's the world and and so i think this is important because i

00:26:33.640 think albertans get it more than these guys give them credit for uh and so whether it's this you

00:26:39.080 know some of them are niggling over this 1998 uh court ruling and pretending it was only about

00:26:44.200 secession but the court was clear that there's a more general principle on this but who cares

00:26:48.920 about the court it's just common sense that if a if a province has a vote like this to express

00:26:54.360 dissatisfaction about something in the in the country you have to respect that and do something

00:27:00.200 about it and you can't just sort of write it off as uh and utterly ignore it uh as you might be

00:27:05.480 able to do with a politician who's of a different party that you don't like i'd love to hear an

00:27:10.360 academic uh talk in plain language i should point out you are dr bill dr bill buick so we appreciate

00:27:18.120 that rob you mentioned a little bit uh about um the premier's popularity possibly factoring into

00:27:25.160 this vote we should address it i don't think there's a less popular premier in the province

00:27:30.440 right now do you think that will impact albertans yes or no vote at the polls uh yes i think both

00:27:37.960 directly and indirectly it'll it'll affect the vote so anyhow to bills dr maybe dr buick dr buick

00:27:48.120 Bill's point earlier, you know, just a victory, just over 50% would be a victory.

00:27:54.780 And the reason is, is because of the Premier's unpopularity.

00:27:58.580 We don't need to get into the reasons for it.

00:28:00.340 But, you know, I've seen polling ranging anywhere from 18 to 22% approval rating.

00:28:05.660 That is abysmal.

00:28:09.020 Those are terrible numbers.

00:28:11.500 Whether he can survive them, who knows.

00:28:12.900 But the problem is, because he's so unpopular, it directly affects the vote in that some people, rightly or wrongly, are going to tie their view of this question and how to answer this question based on how they feel about the premier who's responsible for putting it on the ballot.

00:28:31.140 day and if people aren't thinking and they're thinking emotionally about it they might want to

00:28:35.300 try they might think that this is punishing uh him by by voting no on the issue well of course

00:28:40.500 that's not punishing the premier it's punishing albertans so that's the direct way it affects it

00:28:45.540 and then the indirect way is that he hasn't been able to advocate for it uh what what should be

00:28:51.460 happening in a situation like this if you had if he had the popularity of a of a scott of a premier

00:28:56.820 Moe or, you know, another one of the more popular premiers across the province right

00:29:01.740 now, he would be out actively campaigning for a yes vote, but he can't because he knows

00:29:08.680 as well as anybody else that by doing so, he actually harms the initiative.

00:29:13.340 So we're kind of in a difficult bind here.

00:29:16.180 And frankly, if we get, you know, say 50, 60, anything above 60% would be actually kind

00:29:22.700 of a remarkable vote in favor of ending the program just because, frankly, we've kind of had

00:29:29.620 one hand tied behind our back by having the most unpopular premier in the country.

00:29:36.960 Danielle, is the premier's heart on this, you think?

00:29:39.860 That's the question, isn't it? I think Rob's right. I think if he has strategists around him

00:29:45.180 asking whether he would add value to the debate, most people would probably be saying,

00:29:49.360 if you go out and actively campaign for this, you might end up creating the opposite result.

00:29:55.180 So I want to assume that he does want the, he is engaged, he does want it to pass, he did put it

00:30:00.260 on the ballot. Let me just put something out there that I'm surprised that I haven't heard

00:30:04.860 more mayoral candidates mention this, because it does strike me that if you're going to make

00:30:10.020 the argument that we shouldn't have equalization between the regions, it seems like a pretty

00:30:14.860 powerful argument you could make if you're in Calgary or if you're in Edmonton or if you're in

00:30:19.500 the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo. We've got a lot of equalization that happens in this

00:30:24.060 province too. And this is, I guess, the nature of the problem is that municipalities are feeling

00:30:29.920 resentful that this ballot question is out there, whereas I think municipal leaders should be

00:30:36.120 looking at it as a way of starting a conversation about maybe we need to take this principle of

00:30:42.040 allowing different regions to benefit from the revenues that are generated within their territory

00:30:48.120 so that they can pay for their own services. We've got the same kind of strange tax and transfer game

00:30:52.680 happening within our own province. So to me, having it on the municipal ballot is the exact

00:30:57.880 right place for it. It could start a broader discussion. But sadly, we just haven't had very

00:31:02.540 many champions for this at all. We've got the academics who are against it. We've got the

00:31:06.620 municipal leaders sort of resentful that it's there. We've got at the municipal level, largely

00:31:11.660 those who are employed at the municipal level of office the unions are the ones who tend to come

00:31:16.640 out and vote and I don't I haven't heard very very much enthusiasm for it there so that's the only

00:31:22.660 thing reason I'd be very concerned about the the lack of the premier's popularity and ability to

00:31:26.800 weigh in on this because he should be the principal voice championing it and I think Rob's right that

00:31:32.200 if he if he did end up taking a lead on it we might get the opposite result. Going to stay with

00:31:37.400 you danielle before i do i just want a shameless plug for what we're doing here grateful that

00:31:42.340 you're watching us tonight you're watching uncensored and it's a political panel with a

00:31:46.360 punch we've decided to work with the western standard and uh talk about the things that

00:31:51.160 matter to albertans and give you a platform and hopefully uh some common sense discussion on the

00:31:56.260 issues that matter we're doing it tonight on the equalization referendum that's coming up on the

00:32:00.260 municipal election ballot this coming Monday. Danielle, does Ottawa care? What happens?

00:32:08.240 Well, they should, but I guess it doesn't do much good if you just saber rattle and you don't follow

00:32:13.960 up with any meaningful action. And if they start a consultation with us, I think we have an idea

00:32:22.120 of where that's going to end up. If you put it to a vote, seven out of 10 provinces representing

00:32:27.980 50 percent of the population is i think the vote that you need to be able to change the constitution

00:32:32.540 for the reasons bill and rob have suggested we might end up losing that one the only way we

00:32:36.940 really can start taking our tax dollars back is by having our own alberta pension plan because we pay

00:32:43.420 about 30 of the premiums but we only get back 10 of the benefits that are paid out if if we

00:32:50.380 repatriated that program and we developed the investment principles around the values and

00:32:55.660 principles that Albertans care about, they would pay attention to that. We already know they're

00:33:00.300 paying attention to that because as we were beginning this discussion, the CPP Investment

00:33:05.540 Board was doing advertisements out here saying, oh, your CPP Investment Board is doing a great

00:33:10.600 job on your behalf. We also know that if we decided not to keep the RCMP and went with our

00:33:16.320 own Alberta Provincial Police Force, that would also catch their attention. How do we know that?

00:33:20.480 the RCMP union has already started taking out ads and doing campaigns to try to get Albertans

00:33:26.540 persuaded not to go down that track. So I do think that there are other steps that need to

00:33:31.980 be taken after this one that'll be more powerful, that will cause Ottawa to pay closer attention.

00:33:37.920 But I don't think that they can because of the legal way in which this is structured. They can't

00:33:42.900 ignore it, but they can override it. They can do political maneuvers to make it ineffectual,

00:33:47.620 But there's other things that we can do in retaliation.

00:33:50.280 Well, let's go to the lawyer in the group.

00:33:52.580 Mr. Anderson, what do you think?

00:33:53.740 Is Ottawa watching?

00:33:57.120 They're watching.

00:33:58.420 I don't know if they care at Hill of Beans what happens here.

00:34:01.720 We haven't done anything to defend ourselves.

00:34:05.560 We haven't done anything to push back.

00:34:08.640 Whenever something outrageous happens with Ottawa attacking our interests,

00:34:14.940 um we launch a press release and say we're disappointed uh and that seems to be it we

00:34:23.580 buy billboards okay uh we need to do we need to be more substantive than that and and everything

00:34:30.200 danielle just said uh is absolutely correct the creation of the uh alberta pension plan to replace

00:34:36.020 the cpp is an absolute 100 no-brainer our seniors win our workers win with lower premiums seniors

00:34:43.560 with higher benefits and the taxpayer wins here in alberta so that is a no-brainer but there's

00:34:48.120 many others there's the police forces was mentioned um setting up our own uh unemployment

00:34:53.480 insurance program which we also over contribute to um and then there are i would say more aggressive

00:34:59.000 things that we can do uh ottawa is still not listening um frankly i i just think alberta

00:35:04.760 needs to change the dynamic here and understand look the rules of confederation as they stand

00:35:10.760 right now and as interpreted by the supreme court are rigged against alberta period full stop like

00:35:17.360 let's not pretend it's not that way they're rigged and they're always going to find in favor of the

00:35:23.920 federal government they're always going to lean towards vote buying in quebec and satisfying

00:35:27.600 that mass that large voting block and we have to take a look at ourselves and say okay what are we

00:35:33.580 going to do different because it's insanity to keep doing what we've been trying to do for the

00:35:37.600 last 50 60 years to absolutely no avail so you know my my you know view on it is uh you know

00:35:44.780 someone as a co-author of the uh of the free alberta strategy is that um that we need to

00:35:50.120 start looking at ways to um declare ourself a sovereign jurisdiction and act as a sovereign

00:35:57.080 jurisdiction within canada um so that we are able to take control of our autonomy on various different

00:36:04.500 governance pieces and ensure that we can stand up to Alberta or to Ottawa, get their attention

00:36:12.220 and actually have some meaningful change.

00:36:14.340 Okay, listen, I was going to give you a chance to give a free plug to the Free Alberta Strategy.

00:36:19.720 You just kind of half did.

00:36:22.340 Daniel, let's give him a little more time.

00:36:23.680 I know he's itching to get this out there.

00:36:25.860 The FreeAlbertaStrategy.com is the website.

00:36:29.620 Cole's notes, Rob, what are you telling Albertans in this paper?

00:36:33.000 Well, I'll just say there's two foundational principles of it. Number one, there's the

00:36:38.420 Alberta Sovereignty Act, which we propose the provincial government pass. And all it says,

00:36:43.140 think of it as a notwithstanding clause on provincial rights. So, of course, the charter

00:36:49.120 has a notwithstanding clause, and it says that a province can still do something even if it's

00:36:53.420 found to be an infringement of Section 15, the equality provision and other provisions of the

00:37:00.160 charter if it invokes this notwithstanding clause. Well, we don't have a notwithstanding clause for

00:37:06.060 section 91 and 92 of the constitution, which deals with provincial and federal jurisdictions.

00:37:11.760 And Alberta, in my view, needs to take action on this and say that, look, we are a sovereign

00:37:19.740 jurisdiction within Canada. And when Ottawa passes laws that attack our province's economy,

00:37:26.440 attack provincial jurisdiction and provincial rights.

00:37:30.480 Which they do all the time.

00:37:31.740 Which they do all the time, from the carbon tax to different weapons legislation

00:37:37.520 and restrictions to, you name it, the oil tanker.

00:37:40.740 You can just go on and on, environmental regulations on our oil and gas sector.

00:37:45.340 All of these things, which should be a provincial jurisdiction,

00:37:48.020 all of these things are clearly not within the role of the federal government.

00:37:53.640 And the passage of the Alberta Sovereignty Act would say,

00:37:55.920 look, we are not going to enforce unconstitutional infringements of our provincial rights or attacks on Albertans within the boundaries of Alberta.

00:38:05.140 So, for example, you can pass your carbon tax, fill your boots, but we're not going to enforce it here, period.

00:38:11.440 And you can scream and yell all you want, but we're not enforcing it within our boundaries.

00:38:15.480 And that's the type of action that I believe will get results long term on equalization, as well as on many of the issues that are that are hurting Alberta right now.

00:38:25.920 All right. We could devote an entire program to the free Alberta strategy, and I think we probably will. Right now, let's kick it back to the debate on, or the discussion, pardon me, on the upcoming referendum on equalization. Bill, you didn't get a chance to weigh in on the last question I asked. Did you want to go there?

00:38:43.780 yeah i i uh think there's equalization in particular is not an alberta problem it is a

00:38:52.440 problem for uh like i said roughly 70 percent of the country pays a significant amount into it

00:38:59.660 albertans pay probably about 650 dollars per person but if you go to ontario saskatchewan bc

00:39:06.420 even Newfoundland, they pay about $500 per person. So it's $2,200 for a family of four in those

00:39:15.140 provinces is going directly to fund provincial services in Quebec and the Maritimes. So I feel

00:39:21.740 like we have an opportunity here. Ottawa might not want to listen to Alberta and they might be able

00:39:27.720 to wave their hand about Alberta getting upset again. But if we can get people in Toronto or

00:39:34.680 police people in the greater toronto area and all those target seats saying wait a second how come

00:39:39.560 we aren't getting more of our tax dollars back to pay for our provincial services in metro vancouver

00:39:45.880 saying the same thing uh that is something no party in ottawa can ignore and so what we're

00:39:51.560 trying to do at fairness alberta and i encourage everybody to go uh to go see our equalization

00:39:56.840 referendum.ca website to see we have a section right there to bc and ontario people that might

00:40:02.920 be paying attention to this. This is an opportunity to get a ball rolling from which you guys can

00:40:09.160 benefit a great deal as well and once you got 70% of the country with all those target seats in

00:40:14.920 those places, Ottawa will have to pay attention and that's what we're focused on in the short term.

00:40:19.400 Bill, we've discussed this before and I've challenged you on it and I'll

00:40:23.160 do it again and I know you've got a good answer but it's tough to sell the emotion of this in

00:40:28.600 other provinces do you find that or are you are you getting a good response i've i you know i

00:40:36.280 it's no it is albertans uh tend to be more uh conditioned i would say to to expect uh unfair

00:40:45.720 treatment from ottawa i think it's going to take a little bit more work in in british columbia and

00:40:51.720 ontario to get them thinking the same way but but this country to me has a great deal of potential

00:40:57.960 if we can just stop thinking about it as a sort of a giant welfare experiment and everybody's

00:41:04.280 just here to hold each other when the times are tough uh when this country was founded for two

00:41:09.880 reasons one was mutual defense against the united states because they have the biggest standing

00:41:14.680 army in the world and we're starting to look for something to do and the second one was to have

00:41:19.320 strong economic partnerships so that we could freely trade and cut down all these tariff walls

00:41:25.240 that were preventing us from all of us from making the most of our economies and achieving

00:41:31.160 our potential and so if we can get canada thinking again as a place where we are striving to be the

00:41:36.760 best and the most productive and the freest place in the world i think that can make a huge

00:41:42.120 difference and the key to that in my mind is get ontario to stop thinking of quebec as the big

00:41:47.240 political issue in in uh in canada and start seeing that bc and alberta have just as many

00:41:53.880 people and a much bigger economy than quebec does and it's building a bridge from ontario which is

00:41:59.800 a productive uh have province that pays in as well getting that bridge and that mentality from the 0.99

00:42:05.240 ottawa river kind of being something to just kind of turn away from and look for the potential in

00:42:11.320 the western part of the country and if ontarians can understand that we can all be stronger

00:42:15.560 including the eastern part of the country by having all of our economies firing on all cylinders and

00:42:20.840 ending some of this dependency, to me, that's the recipe for long-term success in Canada.

00:42:27.080 We've covered a lot of ground. We've got some time left. Danielle, I want to go back to you

00:42:31.400 with kind of an open-ended question. You're just joining in the debate or discussion here tonight.

00:42:36.280 People recognize we're talking about the upcoming equalization referendum.

00:42:40.840 What do we need to know ahead of Monday? Well, there's a couple of things that I just find

00:42:46.440 outrageous that really persuaded me that equalization needs to be eliminated and one of

00:42:53.000 them is i think bill alluded to it earlier quebec receives 13 billion dollars out of this fund and

00:43:00.840 it's a total of 21 billion dollars and newfoundland and labrador doesn't qualify for any equalization

00:43:06.200 transfer now think about that and what we've seen over the last year and a half newfoundland labrador

00:43:10.120 is on the brink of bankruptcy they're not able to support their own programming but we're basing

00:43:15.800 their allocation this year based on previous year's levels of wealth. Meanwhile, Quebec keeps

00:43:20.620 bragging that they have balanced budgets and surpluses and putting money away into their

00:43:25.300 prosperity fund and paying down debt, offering subsidized daycare, subsidized post-secondary.

00:43:32.840 And you have to look at that and you say, how can that be? How can we create a program that is so

00:43:37.560 biased in favor of Quebec and so imbalanced against clearly a nation or a jurisdiction

00:43:46.280 that's in need like Newfoundland and Labrador. And that I think is the fundamental unfairness.

00:43:50.040 So when we're talking about equalization, I think what we're talking about is rebalancing the

00:43:54.600 discussion so that the entire program isn't geared towards Quebec. I think we have to be

00:43:58.920 honest about that because if we were, I mean, I must tell you, I don't get too bent out of shape

00:44:04.440 by thinking that we might need to top up Prince Edward Island because they're a very small

00:44:09.460 island jurisdiction, what, 150,000 people? They may have a higher cost of service. It may make

00:44:14.600 sense to give them a bit more of a transfer so they can have roughly equal programs with roughly

00:44:20.260 equal tax rates. But Quebec should have never been able to qualify for this program. We never

00:44:25.440 should have had a program that causes tiny jurisdictions like Newfoundland and Labrador 0.88

00:44:30.260 and Saskatchewan to be paying for platinum level services in Quebec. And that's what it comes down

00:44:36.020 to for me, is that we may end up with some kind of top up for some of the other regions, the smaller

00:44:41.000 regions on a conditional basis or temporary basis, but this permanent transfer of dollars to Quebec

00:44:48.000 as they find ways to crater their own economy by either not developing their own natural resources

00:44:53.920 and creating a new revenue stream, or by subsidizing their electricity rate so that

00:44:59.340 They're not getting an appropriate dividend.

00:45:01.060 That's got to stop.

00:45:01.800 That's a hard line for me.

00:45:03.720 Rob, you want to jump right in there?

00:45:06.100 No, Daniel could not have said it better, frankly.

00:45:08.940 Frankly, Alberta, D.C., Quebec, Ontario should never qualify for equalization, period.

00:45:16.560 We're all big boys and girls.

00:45:18.580 We've got large populations capable of taking care of ourselves, capable of having the economies of scale necessary in our tax base and so forth to build the hospitals that we need.

00:45:29.340 and employ the people that we need there's no reason these four provinces should ever receive

00:45:34.780 equalization saskatchewan manitoba perhaps a little nova scotia perhaps a little bit of

00:45:40.460 equalization would be warranted there in uh in lean times but not a lot and then it should be

00:45:45.980 reserved as daniel said for the very smallest uh populations where economies of scale just

00:45:51.420 in the tax base just do not make it possible to provide proper health care and and education and

00:45:57.020 and so forth so we're talking about a 21 billion program 21 billion dollar program it should

00:46:02.060 probably be about two billion dollars that's what it should probably cost and it should go primarily

00:46:07.260 to two or three provinces in the highest need uh if any depending on how on how things are

00:46:13.860 that year in that province but it has turned into a giant vote buying scheme by sucking dollars out

00:46:20.580 of Alberta, redistributing them into Montreal, Quebec, and the Maritimes as well, all for

00:46:29.200 the purpose of electing Liberal government.

00:46:31.700 It's a joke.

00:46:32.700 It needs to change.

00:46:33.700 Okay, so I want to pick up on that, and just let me be the elephant in the room, or maybe

00:46:38.400 not even.

00:46:39.720 If you're going to get elected as Prime Minister in Canada, you're going to have to win in

00:46:44.160 Ontario, and you're going to have to win in Quebec, and Western Canada doesn't matter,

00:46:49.760 it's often decided before it gets out here in fact it's disappointing but anybody that can do

00:46:55.380 general mathematics not skip counting but standard algorithms which is what we prefer for our kids

00:47:00.320 can see that the numbers add up for Ontario and Quebec so until we change that I don't know how

00:47:06.480 we're going to change equalization but what I'm hearing from the three of you tonight is that this

00:47:11.840 has to be the start of the conversation bill agree or disagree disagree um i i too grew up in a time

00:47:20.800 where we did uh solid fundamentals of math uh in our school system and and it's it's not really the

00:47:27.280 case anymore that you need quebec uh harper won a majority in 11 with hardly any was it 10 quebec

00:47:34.000 seats and a few in the maritimes uh bc and alberta are bigger than quebec bc and alberta have almost

00:47:41.600 the same amount of seats but hopefully we can get that remedied soon and uh and and and if you can

00:47:48.000 win over and moreover it's it's all you know there's those 50 seats in the in the greater

00:47:52.240 toronto area and uh if you can get them thinking about do we want a productive country do we want

00:47:58.800 a prosperous country do we want a free country or do i want to keep sending uh two thousand dollars

00:48:04.960 to quebec's government to have cadillac services just over the ottawa river that we don't have

00:48:09.280 have here in ontario i i feel like you can make it awkward you know and have the people in toronto

00:48:15.820 saying we're kind of fed up with this what are you going to do about this problem and like i said

00:48:20.280 when that happens no party can ignore it and you can win governments based on ontario and the west

00:48:26.680 it's very logical and it's not only possible it's logical thinking your closing comments bill because

00:48:33.020 we're going to come back to you for those once i give rob and then danielle a chance to respond to

00:48:38.340 that rant of mine throwing to Bill. Rob, you first.

00:48:44.040 Well, I understand the logic that Bill was going with there. I do disagree with it from the

00:48:53.540 standpoint of, I don't think there's a difference in the amount, the per capita amounts that are

00:49:02.180 being taken from Albertans as opposed to people in Ontario. And people in Ontario, the voters

00:49:10.240 in Ontario, they know full well that the jurisdiction that's footing most of the bill

00:49:18.420 here is Alberta on a per capita basis. And so to me, I think it's just, to me, I just

00:49:26.220 don't think you're going to be able to find, you're not going to be able to wake up the

00:49:30.160 people of Ontario to that inequality, just because it's not hurting them as much. I mean,

00:49:36.800 sure, it's a bit of a pain, but government wastes money all the time, they think. So what's the big

00:49:41.180 deal? In Alberta, it's a massive problem. I mean, if you just look at our deficits right now,

00:49:49.020 $20 billion a year, it's insanity. I mean, unbelievably, Quebec's got balanced budget

00:49:56.180 using our deficit essentially using the amount of our deficit to pay for their programs i mean yeah

00:50:02.820 this is a big issue here and i don't think i think it's always going to be in ontario's best

00:50:08.180 effort or best interest in their minds to placate quebec with alberta's money and i think the only

00:50:15.060 way that changes if we is if albertans assert their sovereignty and said game over guys we

00:50:21.060 We either change this, or you're going to have to find yourself another sugar daddy. 1.00

00:50:26.820 All right.

00:50:28.780 Hadn't heard it put quite like that, but I like it.

00:50:31.280 Danielle, I'll leave it to you to break the tie on this one.

00:50:34.660 There's a couple of things.

00:50:35.580 I remember reading an Andrew Coyne column years ago.

00:50:37.960 It got me thinking about the dynamics in Ontario.

00:50:40.700 And there's a strange dynamic in Ontario.

00:50:43.320 I don't pretend to understand it.

00:50:44.820 But to be able to win votes in that greater Toronto area,

00:50:48.240 you have to demonstrate that you can win votes in Quebec.

00:50:50.680 Maybe it just goes back to the idea that Ontario, maybe they feel like they've got to be the healer of the nation or something and keep everyone together.

00:50:59.700 But that's why I don't think a political party can win by writing off Quebec completely, even though, as Bill points out, the math works.

00:51:06.980 I think the bigger issue that we have to get to is when you look at all of the different transfers that we have in provincial areas, we've got the Canada Health Transfer, the Canada Social Transfer, and equalization.

00:51:18.960 I just looked up these numbers on the weekend. It's over 83 billion dollars that the federal

00:51:24.440 government launders. They take it from the provinces. They take their cut through the

00:51:28.980 federal bureaucracy. They divvy it up. At least the Canada Health and Social Transfers are done 1.00

00:51:35.160 on a per capita basis. But the reason why everybody keeps dancing to Ottawa's tune is because of the

00:51:40.480 unfairness of equalization. Now, my favorite approach would be just take that 83 billion

00:51:47.120 dollars and turn it all into a single transfer on a per capita basis. And the reason you'd want to

00:51:54.440 do that is pretty soon you'd have the provinces start saying, hmm, why is Ottawa taking this money

00:51:59.980 in the first place? If they want to have meaningful decisions on health care and long-term care and

00:52:06.620 daycare, why don't they run for provincial office? Why do federal politicians run for federal office

00:52:13.300 knowing that it's actually a fairly limited role, and then take money from the provinces so that

00:52:19.500 they can have some way of influencing policy. That's the thing that I object to. But I don't

00:52:24.480 think we get to that conversation without eliminating equalization first, because look

00:52:28.880 what's already happening. We already have the provinces lining up to say, how can we get more

00:52:33.300 money from Ottawa and health transfers? I would far rather for our provinces to say, stop taking

00:52:39.540 it in the first place. Let's convert all of those transfers into a change in tax points. Let's get

00:52:44.760 rid of equalization as it stands, give tiny top ups to those provinces that need it on a different

00:52:49.640 type of basis. And then let's start taking care of our own business. But I don't think that you

00:52:53.680 can have that conversation until you deal with the equalization problem. Well, you may have

00:52:59.360 effectively wrapped for us, Daniel, but I'd like to give everybody a chance, maybe 60 seconds or so,

00:53:05.520 to kind of throw their thoughts together, wrap this up.

00:53:09.320 And again, to those of you at home, thank you for being with us.

00:53:11.760 This is our inaugural edition here on the Western Standard of Uncensored,

00:53:15.640 and we're going to straight talk on some of the things that matter to Albertans and Canadians.

00:53:20.440 Bill, we'll go to you to close first.

00:53:22.580 The upcoming equalization referendum, why should Albertans vote yes?

00:53:27.400 because a voting no is a terrible step backwards for everything that albertans should be concerned

00:53:36.380 about on the federal scene in terms of getting a better deal for albertans uh but b equalization

00:53:42.460 program is extremely flawed and and no this vote won't uh cancel it tomorrow but it'll start a

00:53:49.000 renegotiation and a conversation on equalization which on its own merits needs serious overhaul if

00:53:54.880 not elimination and then c once that negotiation starts other things come out of the table like

00:54:01.140 the health transfers like tax points like trying to adjust the imbalance between the federal spending

00:54:05.800 power and the provincial needs to spend and so please don't be complacent there's not going to

00:54:11.360 be a huge turnout on this vote uh please uh you know follow fairness alberta on facebook we'll

00:54:16.400 be posting things all week come to our uh equalization referendum.ca website and point

00:54:21.720 your friends there and please encourage everyone you know to go out and check yes on that ballot

00:54:26.200 even if they have no other reason to show up to the polls but while they're at it they should

00:54:29.800 probably do a little research on their municipal candidates and make sure we get some responsible 0.93

00:54:33.960 politicians put into place there as well bill buick from fairness alberta thank you for being

00:54:39.320 with us tonight thanks all right rob we'll throw it over to you why should we be voting yes well

00:54:47.240 uh first off i think uh bill uh deserves a lot in fairness alberta deserve uh you know heartfelt uh

00:54:54.840 gratitude for at least getting this into the uh the public sphere a little bit more than it has

00:55:00.520 been because it has been uh the the ucp particularly the premier been completely missing an action on

00:55:06.680 it so uh thank you bill for doing that um vote yes because it's it's the obvious answer to this

00:55:13.320 question. Equalization is a terrible program for Alberta and for Canada, frankly, and it needs to 1.00

00:55:21.600 be eliminated. But also, aside from that, Albertans need to think, okay, what's next? Yes, equalization

00:55:29.560 needs to be eliminated or fundamentally changed, but we have to do more than that. And we have to

00:55:35.320 start thinking about how we can assert our sovereignty as an independent jurisdiction

00:55:39.920 within canada in order to make that happen and i hope people will will start thinking in those

00:55:45.740 terms a little bit more going forward and if we have some ideas of course on freeolbertastrategy.com

00:55:50.220 you can check out thanks and we'll probably have that another night on this program rob thank you

00:55:56.760 for joining us tonight you bet thank you all right danielle we'll leave you the last word on this

00:56:01.160 subject why should we be voting yes to end equalization well let me tell you why i think

00:56:06.740 all the reasons to vote no are bad reasons. One reason to vote no, I'm mad at the premier. So what?

00:56:12.080 Put that aside because this isn't about the premier. Another reason to vote no, well, I feel

00:56:16.180 sorry for the small provinces and we should help them out. That's okay. We can change the approach

00:56:21.820 so that we can address some of those small province issues. Voting no on this one is not the reason to

00:56:27.520 do it. Vote yes to have the conversation about how you're going to change it. Some people say it's

00:56:31.220 the wrong time. Well, when else are we going to do it? Going to wait another two years to have it

00:56:36.020 conjunction with a provincial election this is absolutely the right time to have it as well

00:56:40.900 being engaged on it as well means that we can have more votes on more things so if you vote no

00:56:45.060 you're telling the premier that you don't care about these issues enough to vote one way or the

00:56:49.140 other that you don't care to have the next step of the conversation which we need to have which is

00:56:53.620 how to get more fairness in alberta how to imp how to how to address some of the issues from the fair

00:56:58.900 deal panel so i i look at all of the objections the only reason why you would vote yes or vote

00:57:05.220 vote in favor of keeping the program the way it is is that you're fine with alberta continuing to

00:57:09.700 be a doormat that you're fine with alberta continuing to be the whipping boy you're fine

00:57:14.500 with not wanting to upset the apple cart because quebec might get upset and that's not a good

00:57:18.820 enough reason to to vote yeah to vote no to to defeat this this referendum vote i think

00:57:24.660 we need to have the conversation we need to tackle the challenges we're facing with quebec 1.00

00:57:29.700 head on we need to let them know we know what you're up to we know how you're gaming this

00:57:34.500 program and we're not gonna let you do it anymore because if you want to have a constructive

00:57:38.100 conversation about this country how this country works you want to have a construction or constructive

00:57:42.660 conversation about unity then this brings everyone to the table if Quebec would stop standing in the

00:57:49.220 way of our ability to achieve our own economic prosperity then we might not be having this

00:57:54.580 conversation but it's kind of hitting them where it hurts this is where it hurts and then we can

00:57:58.580 have the conversation about all the other things we need to do to fix confederation and bring some

00:58:02.660 community back. So that's why I say vote yes. Love it. One more, one more question for you,

00:58:07.320 Danielle. Both Rob and Bill have been rightfully plugging the organizations they're with. You're

00:58:12.120 the executive director of the Alberta Enterprise Group. You also have an app called Locals. And

00:58:17.040 if people want to see the content you put out, the discussions you have from a conservative

00:58:21.100 perspective, how do they go about doing that? You bet. I should mention, it's so funny, I was

00:58:25.180 going back looking at some of the old records for the Alberta Enterprise Group. And in 2012,

00:58:29.300 I had a debate with Michael Ignatieff on this exact question of whether or not we should continue to support equalization.

00:58:36.980 I bet you can probably guess from what I'm saying the position that I took at that time.

00:58:40.720 But I do talk about this along with a whole pile of other issues.

00:58:45.100 DanielleSmith.Locals.com

00:58:46.580 Awesome. Danielle, thank you.

00:58:49.500 And our thanks to Rob and Bill, of course, and to all of you for joining us tonight on Uncensored.

00:58:55.900 This is Western Standard's version, Uncensored, a political panel looking at the issues of the day.

00:59:01.360 We're going to continue to do this.

00:59:02.660 Tonight, we talked about the equalization referendum coming up in the next civic election, which is coming up Monday.

00:59:08.760 We will be talking about our personal freedoms, vaccines.

00:59:12.420 We'll be talking about all kinds of things that matter to Albertans and Canadians.

00:59:16.580 Reminder, Derek would want me to let you know that you can go to westernstandard.com and become a member.

00:59:20.760 and I think he'd probably be able to guide you through how to do that better than I can

00:59:25.760 but if you go to the website you'll see it'll walk you through how you can and obviously drop a few

00:59:32.300 bucks and support a good cause. Organizations like this are doing their best to take the issues of

00:59:37.760 the day present them to you unfiltered and frankly not the narrative that we're used to getting in

00:59:43.780 the mainstream. So thank you so much for tuning in tonight it's been a pleasure to bring you our

00:59:47.620 first inaugural edition, and we hope to see you again. Good night.

Western Standard - October 13, 2021

Western Standard： Uncensored

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript