Western Standard - August 15, 2026


Why Alberta feels so different from the rest of Canada


Episode Stats


Length

37 minutes

Words per minute

155.36

Word count

5,759

Sentence count

287

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Today, we will explore the extraordinary nature of Alberta and the West, how it's different from the East and largely ignored in Canada.
00:00:08.900 That character comes from a remarkable story of two great, very different continental civilizations coming together 150 years ago in the vision of some incredibly smart people.
00:00:21.900 If fully embraced, that character can be an incredible contributor to a nation. Welcome to a nation of people.
00:00:30.000 Hi, I'm Natalie St. Hilaire with me is Randy Royer.
00:00:51.860 We are two Albertans very proud of our province and the character of Albertans.
00:00:56.640 explain it, describe where it comes from, and explore what it means for nation building.
00:01:03.040 Wonderful diverse characters and cultures abound across the country, each contributing to the
00:01:08.800 national mosaic. But Alberta's unique strengths and potential contributions are poorly understood and
00:01:16.880 far too frequently sidelined. Let's start at the beginning.
00:01:20.240 all right randy let's talk about the alberta spirit tell me your thoughts on that one of my
00:01:29.040 favorite subjects i am clearly a very proud albertan i love the spirit of alberta we're
00:01:36.240 entrepreneurial we get things done we solve problems we do it collaboratively you know
00:01:43.200 there's no place in the world that i've ever been where people hold the door for you all the time
00:01:47.360 or if your car breaks down on the road people stop to help you oh yeah that's great to hear
00:01:52.720 i've always felt very at home and very a lot of camaraderie in this province and so that's would
00:01:58.880 you say that's typical of western canada or are there variations across the provinces because i
00:02:04.880 i've always also you know thought that was a western canadian thing more than just specifically
00:02:09.520 alberta well it's a theme that goes right across western canada there's variations on the theme
00:02:15.120 for Saskatchewan, for example, it's kind of like the Alberta character, but it's also got this
00:02:22.820 niceness to it, this down-home feel. And you go to a wedding in Saskatchewan and everybody's your
00:02:29.140 friend. It's quite remarkable. And the best thing about Alberta is all the people that have moved
00:02:33.460 here from Saskatchewan. And then Manitoba, I mean, with their socials, those are the little
00:02:39.880 neighborhood block parties that they have, you know, it's just one of the friendliest places
00:02:46.060 around. And then British Columbia is, you know, it's particularly outside of the lower mainland
00:02:50.820 and Vancouver Island. It's very much like Alberta with just a bit of an exception because they just
00:02:56.940 live in one of the nicest places in the world to live and it changes their character just a little
00:03:01.400 bit. But it's just, it's very similar. So it's interesting that you use the word character
00:03:06.240 because I feel like that's what you're describing here is a different character almost for each
00:03:12.320 of the provinces. And, you know, there's like a sense or a feeling depending on where you're at
00:03:19.660 that just is somewhat different based on where you're coming from. And like neither of that is
00:03:25.020 better or worse than another. It's just different. It's just different. That's exactly right. I've
00:03:31.500 been blessed that I have been able to work right across Canada. I was in the hotel business and
00:03:35.740 And I built hotels right across in every province, except for not the Yukon and not Prince Edward Island.
00:03:43.520 And so I got to know all the different characters.
00:03:45.480 And, you know, we talk about the Canadian cultural mosaic, but we also have a character mosaic.
00:03:52.860 And because it's Alberta's character that's so different than the East, we kind of get lost on that a little bit.
00:04:00.260 Okay, well, let's go there then.
00:04:01.700 Let's talk about the character in the East.
00:04:04.240 What do you have to say about our friends a little bit further to the east?
00:04:09.740 Well, again, there's no right or wrong.
00:04:12.500 It's just different.
00:04:13.700 To understand Alberta's character, you need to understand how the lands here were settled
00:04:20.820 as opposed to how the lands were settled in the east.
00:04:24.440 And so you really need to look at the map differently.
00:04:27.900 So we're typically used to looking at French Canada is blue,
00:04:31.720 and then all and all the rest of Canada is red and so you know throw that one out then there's 0.98
00:04:37.320 an indigenous map that shows the different you know indigenous communities don't look at that one
00:04:41.800 but look at the map of the 11 treaties and that goes from northern Ontario includes all of
00:04:49.320 Manitoba all of Saskatchewan all of Alberta and a big chunk of northern British Columbia
00:04:55.400 And that is really what I would describe as the West.
00:04:58.520 There's 11 treaties and the treaties are fundamental, in my view, 0.63
00:05:03.960 to how the character is different than the East.
00:05:07.480 That's really surprising to me.
00:05:09.000 I mean, that's not a way that I've thought about Canada before.
00:05:12.840 I mean, I certainly have heard a lot of people, especially in the last few years,
00:05:15.800 talking about treaty.
00:05:17.640 But to actually describe that as fundamental to creating these different characters
00:05:22.200 in different areas is uh i know that's really interesting and new for me well canada is it's
00:05:27.800 an interesting place of course but you know we've very much focused on the two european cultures
00:05:33.160 that came together in canada that's the british ontario maritimes and then french quebec and so
00:05:39.800 those are two european cultures that came together in western canada it was two civilizations that
00:05:46.200 came together and the civilizations are very very different like incredibly different they think
00:05:51.720 completely differently and the act of treaty was a commitment to merge those two civilizations
00:06:01.320 together to form something unique and different and that is what formed the alberta character
00:06:07.080 and and as i said most of pretty much the the western canada character okay so that's western
00:06:12.840 canada but what about eastern canada what about their character so um because there's a conflict
00:06:18.360 there right like there's a you know the things that we've said so far about western canada feel
00:06:23.960 um the the familiar to me and and so i'm wondering where the characters are in conflict between
00:06:31.080 you know ontario quebec and western canada so i'm going to tell you the story in the background of
00:06:36.120 how it got to be different but the short form is that um the the i'm going to call it the basically
00:06:45.080 Eastern Canada and the Pacific, which is Vancouver Island and the coast around what is now Vancouver.
00:06:53.660 Those two places I would call colonial Canada.
00:06:57.200 So they were populated and settled on behalf of European crowns.
00:07:02.560 So they came here to extend the power and the glory of the European kings.
00:07:09.120 And so they have this sense of loyalty, of continuity, and deference to authority.
00:07:15.980 And what I'm going to tell you about is that in Western Canada,
00:07:18.940 we came here and we settled in these lands under the agreement of treaties.
00:07:24.780 And we came here for freedom, democracy, and an ability to build a new life.
00:07:30.840 We didn't come here to support a royal crown.
00:07:34.340 And so those are the two very, very different characters, two different ways of thinking.
00:07:39.340 And that is the basis of much of the conflict that we see between the West and the East.
00:07:44.500 And that's a lot of why the East doesn't want to listen to us.
00:07:47.220 It's because we just character-wise just think so differently.
00:07:51.420 Okay, well, that makes sense.
00:07:53.320 But I mean, I think I need to understand like a little bit more to fully buy into the idea that, you know, that's where these differences are emerging.
00:08:00.900 There's a lot of differences.
00:08:02.280 It's very, it feels very deep.
00:08:03.660 and intense sometimes.
00:08:04.860 And so say more about how all of this came to be
00:08:08.160 and convince me.
00:08:09.640 Well, we're all part of our,
00:08:12.160 we are a creation of our history.
00:08:14.480 And what happens is that a culture or community
00:08:20.320 has that history, creates a character,
00:08:22.880 and then people that come in absorb that character.
00:08:25.880 So the question is, how did we get the character that we did?
00:08:29.560 And so it all started in about 1820
00:08:33.260 when Mexico agreed to let American settlers settle
00:08:37.760 in their Northern territories.
00:08:39.640 Now their Northern territories at the time were Texas,
00:08:43.300 New Mexico, California, Nevada,
00:08:47.260 it's parts of Colorado, parts of Utah.
00:08:49.480 That was Northern Mexico. 0.99
00:08:51.960 And the Mexicans, they introduced, 0.99
00:08:54.380 it was called the General Colonization Law
00:08:57.620 that allowed Americans to move in.
00:08:59.580 So in 1935, what happened was the Americans all wanted decentralization, and of course the Mexicans said, no, we're a centralized country, everything runs out of Mexico City, started a revolution, and that was the Texas Revolution started.
00:09:15.660 They eventually, by a stroke of luck, caught Santa Ana with his pants down.
00:09:21.060 And I mean that literally, that's how they caught him with his pants down.
00:09:24.540 And so they took him back to Mexico City and said, we want our independence.
00:09:29.960 Texas got his independence.
00:09:31.780 They were about a year and a half independent.
00:09:33.980 And this is kind of a story for the separatists to think about, is that they very quickly became a state in the United States of America.
00:09:41.880 Okay, so let me just repeat back to you what you just said.
00:09:44.340 is from my understanding.
00:09:47.280 So the southern part of some of the U.S. was Mexico.
00:09:52.180 And there's actually a guy named Santa Ana.
00:09:54.860 That's not just like a Wins in California.
00:09:58.540 That's an actual person.
00:09:59.260 That's an actual person.
00:10:00.460 And there was a war that was fought and the Mexicans lost.
00:10:05.180 Texas got their independence.
00:10:07.000 And then became part of America.
00:10:10.260 Well, a year and a half later, Houston.
00:10:13.240 Santa Ana was president of Mexico, by the way.
00:10:15.720 And Houston was the leader of the rebellion.
00:10:18.480 And he basically took Texas to join the United States a year and a half later.
00:10:23.600 So Houston was also the name of a person.
00:10:25.920 Houston was the name of another person, yeah.
00:10:27.620 I'm learning a lot today.
00:10:29.400 And the other piece of it is, of course, remember the Alamo.
00:10:33.540 And the Alamo is where the rebels took a stand.
00:10:37.180 And they got overwhelmed by Santa Ana. 1.00
00:10:40.260 And his position was, these guys are all secessionists and traitors, so we just kill them. 1.00
00:10:45.320 That's our policy. 1.00
00:10:46.740 And what they did was they killed everybody at the Alamo.
00:10:49.340 And so the rallying cry for Texas was, remember the Alamo.
00:10:54.520 Oh, okay.
00:10:55.440 I've heard that phrase before.
00:10:56.620 Didn't know what I was supposed to be remembering.
00:10:58.880 Okay, so what does all this have to do with Alberta?
00:11:01.560 Well, the story goes that then what happened was California declared their, if you remember the show Zorro.
00:11:09.260 That's all about American settlers in California.
00:11:12.340 They declared their independence.
00:11:14.320 It was a handful of people.
00:11:15.820 They created a flag with a bear on it, which is the bear of California now.
00:11:19.740 And the American government decided that they needed to support these American settlers in these lands,
00:11:26.500 and they declared war on Mexico.
00:11:29.240 And, of course, they ended up in 1945 was the Mexican-American War.
00:11:35.440 Americans go right up to Mexico City. They beat them, take away a lot of their land.
00:11:42.500 And what it proves is that if you settle it, you own it. So suddenly the colonization of North 0.87
00:11:49.400 America was get your settlers to get there and own it. Then fast forward a little bit,
00:11:56.440 American Civil War happens. Canada realizes that this is a danger for Canada. That's when
00:12:03.080 Confederation happens in 1867.
00:12:07.220 Then the next step is in 1870, there's actually 50, um,
00:12:12.840 mercantile shops, uh, outposts that are American owned and run
00:12:17.920 in Southern Alberta.
00:12:19.620 So the government in Ottawa decides we got to do something because if the
00:12:23.900 Americans settle in Southern Alberta, they will end up owning Southern, uh,
00:12:28.340 owning Alberta. 0.84
00:12:29.000 And so they realize that they've got to do something.
00:12:34.040 Okay.
00:12:34.480 So Alberta gets settled after the American Civil War, which is pretty late in the game
00:12:42.180 as far as the settling of North America, to my mind.
00:12:45.720 Because you've already got the American Revolutions happened, and now you've got the American
00:12:50.280 Civil War, which is 100 years later, right?
00:12:54.980 So we're almost at 1900, is what I'm trying to say, when Alberta gets settled.
00:12:59.820 The west of the continent was getting settled.
00:13:03.100 So what happened was that the Canadian government in Ottawa was spurned by Ontario
00:13:11.020 because Ontario was realizing that they were going to get encircled.
00:13:14.740 So the Americans were moving north, and Ontario was just going to be this little patch of land around the Great Lakes.
00:13:21.080 So they decided that they had to get out west and they had to populate it.
00:13:25.140 They did the deal with British Columbia to join Confederation, but they had to populate the prairies.
00:13:30.640 The prairie, they had a couple of problems.
00:13:32.760 So the first problem was how to get there.
00:13:36.020 So if you're in Ottawa at the time in 1870, and you want to get to the Canadian prairies, call it southern Alberta,
00:13:42.680 you had to take a ferry from Ottawa down the Ottawa River to Montreal.
00:13:48.160 From Montreal, you'd get on a steamer, you'd go around Atlantic Canada, down the east coast of the United States, around Florida, back up to the Mississippi.
00:13:57.400 And on the Mississippi, you'd get on a paddle wheeler, go up the Mississippi, transfer over to the Missouri River, end up at a place called Fort Benton.
00:14:06.900 And then you'd have a two-day wagon train ride from Fort Benton to southern Alberta.
00:14:12.040 The Canadian government looked at this and they said, no way can we put an army in Western Canada.
00:14:18.160 And the reason is because there's this huge, dense forest in northwestern Ontario.
00:14:23.960 In fact, even today, there is a road on the Nipigon Bridge in Ontario
00:14:30.180 that is the only connecting point between all of western Canada and all of eastern Canada.
00:14:37.180 That one bridge.
00:14:38.180 And in 2016, that bridge broke down for 16 hours.
00:14:45.160 And there was no way to get from Eastern Canada to Western Canada by vehicle.
00:14:50.500 It's like a metaphor for our country.
00:14:52.480 It is a bit.
00:14:53.240 Yeah, that's exactly right.
00:14:54.820 So they realized that there is no way they could use force to settle the Canadian prairies.
00:15:02.220 So they decided, and this was where Great Britain was going anyway,
00:15:07.180 they decided to recognize the rights of the Indigenous that were already there,
00:15:10.820 treat them respectfully, do treaties, and have the treaties invite the settlers and the pioneers.
00:15:18.980 And so I...
00:15:20.020 Wait, wait, wait.
00:15:20.840 So what you just said there is not what I understand happened in Canada.
00:15:27.900 What you just said there is that the Indigenous people in Alberta invited people to settle these lands.
00:15:38.820 This is an example of how Eastern history is told and dominates and we don't tell Western history.
00:15:47.720 So we, those of us, you and I, we are invitees of treaty.
00:15:53.140 We were invited here by the act of treaty.
00:15:56.000 We didn't put our elbows up and steal the land.
00:15:59.000 That's not what happened.
00:15:59.920 That's not our history.
00:16:01.200 And I think people don't realize that.
00:16:04.020 So just to clarify, you're saying that's not what happened in Alberta.
00:16:07.240 Right.
00:16:07.420 It could be what happened in other provinces in different timelines.
00:16:12.320 In earlier days, there might have been more of that sort of brute force colonialism.
00:16:19.380 But by the time we get to settling Alberta, there's actually a good relationship.
00:16:24.140 And we're invited here to help basically protect the Indigenous and Canada, the beginning of Canada, from the Americans.
00:16:35.260 Well, that was the basis of it.
00:16:37.100 Ontario wanted to not be American. 0.99
00:16:40.060 That was their whole purpose. 0.99
00:16:41.600 And so they needed to have
00:16:44.440 the Western Canada settled to make it Canadian.
00:16:48.520 And the way to do that was to sign treaties.
00:16:51.480 And that's where the vision of treaty came in.
00:16:54.620 And that's where the intention of treaty came in.
00:16:57.620 And my hypothesis is that as the Alberta character
00:17:01.360 is the creation of both the vision and intention of treaty.
00:17:05.460 So I need to tell you about the vision of treaty, and this comes from my friends in the Indigenous community, that the elders were, I have to put this in perspective first, that as I read it and understand it, the Indigenous communities were strong.
00:17:22.320 There was lots of buffalo around, they were doing very well.
00:17:26.260 This was not a forced treaty in any way, but they probably did understand what was happening in the U.S. and they didn't want any part of it. 0.75
00:17:35.160 And when the Northwest Mounted Police came out, they got rid of all the whiskey and gun traders
00:17:41.400 from the America, from the United States. And so that was a positive thing for the indigenous 1.00
00:17:46.040 communities is that the guns and the whiskey were kind of creating havoc in their communities. So 1.00
00:17:50.680 they were glad that that was pushed out. So they, they decided to do treaties. And the reason that
00:17:56.200 the elders wanted to do it because their vision was that they were going to be creating a new
00:18:01.800 society it wasn't going to be indigenous it wasn't going to be european but it was going to be a
00:18:06.200 blend of best of both and my view is that the blend of best of both is bottom-up governance
00:18:14.040 from the indigenous side and respect for the self-sovereignty of the individual and
00:18:20.920 on the european side it was free initiative and and free enterprise those are the two best things
00:18:27.640 of the European community, if you will.
00:18:30.780 And so I look at Alberta today and I think that this is actually
00:18:35.240 what the vision of treaty was.
00:18:36.840 We're entrepreneurial.
00:18:38.080 We believe in the individual sovereignty of people here in Alberta.
00:18:41.980 You can do whatever you want.
00:18:42.820 We don't care.
00:18:43.820 Let's go do a deal together.
00:18:45.060 And we both have a chance to be successful.
00:18:47.100 Okay.
00:18:47.400 So where are you getting this original vision from?
00:18:51.740 I understand what you might be saying as the outcome
00:18:55.440 right in this Alberta character.
00:18:57.300 And I agree with you, there's a very entrepreneurial spirit here.
00:19:00.460 There's very bottom up governance thing that goes on in Alberta.
00:19:04.000 But where are you getting the initial like, like this initial vision
00:19:08.040 that that was there initially?
00:19:09.740 So that was comes from my friends that are indigenous.
00:19:13.820 And what we need to understand is that this is the clash of two civilizations.
00:19:22.160 The indigenous call North America Turtle Island.
00:19:24.460 And the view of in Turtle Island was the sovereignty was at the individual level.
00:19:31.700 In Europe, the sovereignty is with the sovereign, and we've talked about this in other episodes.
00:19:37.340 But the clash was that where does the sovereignty reside?
00:19:42.720 And there's a book out there that I can't remember the name of it, but what they suggest is the age of enlightenment actually came from the indigenous of North America,
00:19:53.920 going to Europe, specifically Scotland and England, and saying,
00:20:00.900 why do you let the king have complete control over you?
00:20:07.260 I think there's a good sign in colonial Virginia.
00:20:16.080 And 1776, a guy wrote, 0.97
00:20:19.940 the indigenous have no words for indebted servant.
00:20:24.240 or oppressed population. They didn't have that concept because they had pure participation
00:20:31.840 democracy. In fact, the Iroquois Confederacy contributed significantly to the American
00:20:39.440 Bill of Rights. And in 1988, the Congress actually acknowledged the contribution that
00:20:45.920 the Indigenous people made to the creation of their Bill of Rights and their Act of Independence.
00:20:51.440 But, I mean, like you're saying a lot of things that are, you know, I want to say buried and hidden and haven't been talked about.
00:20:59.240 And also, like, in contrast to maybe what we all believe happened, which is that the founding fathers of America wrote letters back and forth and created the Constitution in America.
00:21:11.160 And, you know, they did that in conjunction with some people from France, maybe.
00:21:15.060 But you're really saying that it was everybody involved, including the indigenous.
00:21:19.980 Well, specifically.
00:21:20.580 in their ideas yeah specifically benjamin franklin went to the iroquois confederation
00:21:25.540 and asked them how they did their their confet their their democracy in fact it's the iroquois
00:21:31.540 confederation at the hadunusine i'm not sure how to say that um it was established in 1144 and it's
00:21:39.140 the longest standing participation participatory democracy in the world wow well i know we're
00:21:44.900 going to get some indigenous folks on to have conversations with as the show goes on so we'll
00:21:50.580 We'll have those conversations and flesh it out a little bit more then, but it always startles me a little bit to hear you talk about this history that I feel like I just haven't been educated on.
00:22:01.180 Well, unfortunately, we're not educated, but let me get back to the process of settling Western Canada.
00:22:09.120 They had done a deal with the Indigenous.
00:22:12.080 They were going to bring people out, but Ontario had a problem.
00:22:15.380 they didn't have enough loyal British citizens to populate these vast lands of the West.
00:22:21.600 And so what they did was they called out to people from all over Europe
00:22:26.380 to come to North America and settle in the Canadian prairies.
00:22:30.780 So they didn't have that sense of British loyalty.
00:22:34.540 They came here, those people came here, and they came from the Ukraine,
00:22:38.420 from Finland, from Italy, from all kinds of places,
00:22:42.720 and some from the United States also.
00:22:44.460 But they came here based on going to the Western North America
00:22:49.460 and finding freedom, democracy, and an ability to build a new life.
00:22:55.560 That's why we found this sense of self-reliance.
00:22:59.280 That's why we have the collaborative approach of building the barn together.
00:23:03.500 And that's why we don't defer to authority the same way that they do in Eastern Canada.
00:23:09.560 We don't have a history of that.
00:23:11.000 Instead, we have this history of treaty where individuals have sovereignty versus following the leader.
00:23:19.920 And it's created a big conflict in Canada.
00:23:22.960 Okay, so say more about that.
00:23:24.420 I mean, it really resonates with me personally at a personal level, not to defer to authority.
00:23:31.140 So I understand maybe a little bit why I feel like I fit in better in Western Canada, just at a personal level.
00:23:37.640 but I want to understand more about the conflict and like sort of the two,
00:23:43.280 how this all plays out.
00:23:44.840 Well, because, you know, the winner writes the story, writes history,
00:23:48.520 and that we're dominated by the character and the politics of Eastern Canada.
00:23:54.400 So we don't tell the Western Canada story enough.
00:23:58.560 And so for those in Eastern Canada, it's easier just to kind of brush us aside
00:24:04.120 because we kind of disagree a lot and they don't understand why we disagree.
00:24:07.640 uh but we do and uh and they think there's just something weird about how much we disagree
00:24:13.000 so they they want to just you know take the easy route out and just they end up just calling us a
00:24:18.440 bunch of rednecks like and they think of us as texas so um but it's easy to kind of discredit
00:24:24.520 disqualify and disregard if you can characterize people an easy way and that's because of tv and 0.63
00:24:31.240 all that stuff that's how they've done it and so um so they've just sort of disregarded the
00:24:37.080 western canadian character which is quite different so you've got a one area of the
00:24:42.280 country that defers to authority because they are really um in in a bloodline that was very
00:24:50.280 imperialistic believed in royalty yeah and it's easier it's kind of easier in life to just go
00:24:57.880 along to get along like if you can just say i trust you to manage me and go with it then you
00:25:05.240 can take care of your stuff. You don't have to worry about getting in arguments or conflict.
00:25:10.520 And so that's very different than the Alberta that I know, which can be very tough to wrangle,
00:25:18.680 to use a cowboy term. And so that's what you're saying is essential. And so then as a result of
00:25:24.280 them being bigger and us being loud and full of conflict, they've just decided to ignore us.
00:25:29.640 right okay and so what about like the fact that alberta is constantly like we're constantly
00:25:37.160 welcoming new people just in the time i've been in alberta which is since junior high it's i think
00:25:42.760 quadrupled in size or tripled in size at least um so i'm curious like didn't that doesn't that
00:25:49.480 change our culture it changes our culture a little bit but it doesn't really change the character
00:25:56.920 those are two subtly different things character is more foundational than culture so culture
00:26:03.000 means you know what you eat and you know it's things you celebrate and stuff like that character
00:26:08.200 is fundamental how do you think and uh and what happens is that you know people people in ontario
00:26:15.560 there's lots of people in ontario that are entrepreneurial and so and i've got lots of
00:26:19.240 friends that have come from ontario and it sounds like you're included in this uh come come from
00:26:24.440 Ontario drawn by the character of entrepreneurship and self sovereignty here in Alberta. And they're
00:26:31.960 more Albertan than anybody can imagine. I mean, and so there's that. And then what happens is
00:26:42.040 it takes about five years for an immigrant to actually meld into the character of the local
00:26:50.680 community. So we end up adding strength to our character and our culture by immigration. It
00:26:58.680 doesn't detract from us, it adds to it. And because of our belief in the individual sovereignty,
00:27:05.880 that's all enriching. It makes us richer. And that as opposed to the Eastern idea of
00:27:15.080 of deference to authority that was accentuated,
00:27:21.180 for example, by the United Empire loyalists
00:27:23.420 who came to Canada from the United States
00:27:26.240 after the American Revolution.
00:27:27.960 They didn't like the idea of freedom and democracy,
00:27:30.380 so they wanted to remain loyal to the king.
00:27:32.840 And they actually fled freedom and democracy
00:27:35.500 for continuity of royal prerogative. 0.65
00:27:40.420 And so that added to the culture down east,
00:27:43.000 and we didn't have any of that impact.
00:27:45.060 that didn't add we didn't have you know the empire loyalists ever coming to to uh western canada so
00:27:51.460 what you're saying is in ontario you had the settling happening from colonial like imperial
00:27:58.420 britain and then when the american revolution happened you had the people that still wanted
00:28:02.820 to be british go to ontario so you had extra imperialism in ontario and then you contrast
00:28:10.660 that with by the time alberta gets settled people coming here not from britain but from all over
00:28:17.460 europe and wanting freedom and democracy and kind of the the story of america really you know the
00:28:24.740 pioneering spirit even though it wasn't america they wanted that that ideal america had been
00:28:30.660 advertising across europe and sort of starting in 1850 and on so they had created this idea of come
00:28:37.940 to North America for freedom, democracy and an ability to build a new life. So it was pretty
00:28:44.340 easy to kind of connect to that advertising. Well, I know that I feel very, very, I don't
00:28:52.580 want to say like loyal to Alberta, but I love this place. And part of why I love it is because that
00:28:58.340 non-deference to authority is sort of in me, it's innate in me and I get it. And so I can understand
00:29:05.620 why people would come here and take on that character?
00:29:10.020 Well, it's also interesting that it plays out in politics.
00:29:13.460 So people in Alberta are having a hard time understanding
00:29:17.700 the transition of the Liberal Party.
00:29:19.860 They have a hard time understanding why Eastern Canada voted for the Liberals again,
00:29:25.380 and how all the Liberal cabinet ministers could do a 180 degree turn,
00:29:31.860 go from being extreme environmentalists to, we got to develop resources. And it's founded in
00:29:38.260 that character, in that colonial character. The first is that when the electorate in Eastern
00:29:44.660 Canada was under pressure from the American president, people always go to where their
00:29:48.980 comfort zone is. And the comfort zone for Eastern Canada is the Liberal Party. And so when they're
00:29:55.860 under pressure from the United States, they went to the place where they were comfortable
00:30:00.900 deferring where they could defer their authority someone that would take care of them they knew
00:30:05.860 what they were getting so they vote that's why they voted liberal then the same thing inside
00:30:11.620 the liberal party the cabinet ministers were they deferred to authority they were told what to do
00:30:17.140 by the pmo the prime minister and they did it and they did it with full gusto and then they got a
00:30:23.060 new leader and they did what he told them to do with full gusto even though it was in the exact
00:30:28.500 opposite direction. And then in Alberta, when we have elected Eastern trained politicians,
00:30:38.100 notably Kenny, Jason Kenny, who grew up in the political circles of Ottawa, and he understood
00:30:47.860 how that works. Alberta works very differently because you actually have to pay attention to
00:30:54.620 and accept the opinion of the individuals.
00:30:57.660 In Eastern Canada, you lead,
00:30:59.900 and you tell people how they're going to think.
00:31:03.020 In Western Canada, in Alberta specifically,
00:31:06.020 you have to actually listen to people,
00:31:07.960 and then they tell you how they want to be led.
00:31:10.740 So it's a completely different environment.
00:31:13.760 Okay, so let's get back to the Constitution,
00:31:15.760 as it's one of the major themes
00:31:16.860 that we talk about in this podcast.
00:31:19.440 How is Alberta's character recognized
00:31:22.300 in our Constitution?
00:31:24.620 Not at all. If it's recognized at all, it's a problem that needs to be taken care of. It needs to be drowned out. It needs to be gradually gotten rid of. And so the Constitution views the Eastern character as the only character in Canada, and the Trudeau's Constitution just basically doesn't recognize any differences at all in the West and basically structures all of the
00:31:54.620 the institutions of the country to basically diminish the Western Canadian character.
00:32:03.200 So it actually, it's not that we're left out, it's that we are actively
00:32:07.120 trying to be reprogrammed. And that's what the 82 Constitution actually does.
00:32:14.460 Well, I can understand why you had a problem with it back in 82.
00:32:18.500 Yeah, because it was clear that that was what was going to happen.
00:32:21.680 Can you say more about how this is all played out?
00:32:24.620 In terms of?
00:32:25.960 Yeah, just in terms of like, how is it, like, give me an example from the Constitution, right, that has really left Alberta out of, you know, like a factor.
00:32:37.960 Well, the national energy policy is probably the first factor that, you know, this is an interesting thing about character.
00:32:47.240 And Ontario has this big brother character and Quebec has this Bastion Quebec character.
00:32:57.120 And the 82 Constitution and the NEP, we've said this before, we're tied in lockstep.
00:33:05.300 And the NEP was an expression to Quebec that they could control the country through Ottawa.
00:33:13.920 and the story on NEP was basically that in the 50s, Alberta had found oil and wanted to develop
00:33:21.960 the resources. Ontario, to their credit, agreed to pay a little bit more for Alberta oil and gas
00:33:29.220 and use Alberta oil and gas. Quebec decided that it wanted to import from foreigners because it
00:33:35.080 was cheaper. So then when foreign oil skyrocketed through the embargoes and all that stuff,
00:33:41.600 Trudeau tried to basically take the excess value from Canadian crude and subsidize the foreign
00:33:51.480 crude for Quebec. So it was absolutely an example of the Canadian character of, you know,
00:34:01.100 the colonial character of deferred a leadership. I'll tell you what to do. And Alberta is a colony
00:34:09.500 of a colony and being a colony we don't really care what their character is it's kind of like
00:34:15.660 feels like being treated like children when you're not children and and the anger that would
00:34:21.420 rise up as a result of that okay so you know what it is like that it's like family dynamics in a lot
00:34:26.300 of ways right like and siblings and and then you've got parents in ottawa and other people
00:34:30.940 being like but i'm a grown-up and all this is going on right and we kind of have to at some
00:34:35.740 point, find a way to come to terms with, or look at what a solution might be. So if the West were
00:34:42.840 to contribute to the Constitution, if we were to suggest changes, what would they be?
00:34:50.080 Well, the first and foremost change is to place the sovereignty with the individuals,
00:34:57.320 to get away from this royal prerogative, and we talked about the other day, is we have
00:35:02.700 prime ministerial prerogative now uh get away from that and put the power of democracy into
00:35:09.340 the hands of the individuals and um i believe that there is a a trend in civilizations across
00:35:17.180 the world where people are getting more powerful and the and the governments are becoming less
00:35:22.460 powerful and that's the diminution of the nation state and things like that but that's certainly
00:35:27.820 that is that is our character that's who we are that's what ontario made us to be uh as you said
00:35:32.940 about we're now adult adult children we're not the kids that they created why it's a good idea to
00:35:39.740 accept the child that they've created and have us improve their lives and that in turn should spawn
00:35:47.100 more entrepreneurship in eastern canada productivity and all that stuff and it can increase prosperity
00:35:54.060 I mean, but don't you just feel like this is unreconcilable?
00:35:58.380 Like these differences are just fundamentally like their values differences that can't
00:36:05.260 work together? My opinion is that's the richness. It's a little bit like
00:36:10.700 our financial structure in Canada. Toronto has stayed and stable and very cautious.
00:36:17.340 And it's run by the Scottish mafia, they say, the banks. Western Canada, and particularly in
00:36:23.500 calgary it's more entrepreneurial it's freewheeling they'll try different things and the reality is
00:36:29.980 our country needs both and so in the same way that our can any good country needs more than one
00:36:37.260 character and if you can have those characters work together that's a strength not a weakness
00:36:43.500 well i'd love to see how it is that you envision that coming together because i feel like we're
00:36:50.220 pretty at odds right now but i trust you that you have a vision for this randy because i've
00:36:56.620 had a few conversations with you um so that will actually be the topic of our next episode so
00:37:03.660 Tune in.