Western Standard - August 18, 2025


Would Alberta Rejoin Canada Today? Pipeline Panel Weighs In


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

187.18925

Word Count

753

Sentence Count

1

Misogynist Sentences

2


Summary

Canadians have long been asking the question: if quebec were to leave the federation, what would it mean for the rest of the country? What would that mean for Canada? And what would that look like for Canada as a whole?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 if alberta was an independent country right now would we join canada under these terms yeah
00:00:08.720 no one would ever even the most hardcore federalists they have to admit no i probably would
00:00:12.960 not um but you know we've you know alberta independence has thought about the other
00:00:17.360 question of broader western independence if alberta went there's a very good chance
00:00:21.200 saskatchewan would follow probably start a domino effect quebec is then gone because quebec would
00:00:25.680 have to pay into canada they'll never do that and that means at that point then bc maybe manitoba
00:00:29.680 territories come along and then it raises the question would canada just be refounded
00:00:35.520 under the new constitution because i fundamentally uh you know i didn't grow up not liking canada i
00:00:43.440 grew up as a passionate canadian nationalist and i if it was possible to save canada that
00:00:47.920 that would be my preference i think it's the preference of most even hardline alberta
00:00:51.360 nationalists i no longer want to be outvoted by the east all the time because they have crazy ideas i
00:00:56.080 i think we just have very separate conceptions of the role of government how we want to govern
00:01:00.880 ourselves um but yeah i i so i think that's kind of what bernier is arguing not to actually recreate
00:01:08.480 the country again but that it would it would create uh the political circumstance political
00:01:13.360 facts on the ground that would lead to broader reform of canada fine but i i that's not what would
00:01:19.840 happen if we got a yes vote we got a yes vote it's done yeah or at least then that's pulled the
00:01:25.840 string a string on the sweater that made it unravel and you know whatever happens after that i i think
00:01:30.480 if any one province leaves the federation the federation is done whether it's quebec or alberta
00:01:34.720 or saskatchewan no no no i think quebec could leave and everything i our reason for leaving would
00:01:40.640 more or less go away not entirely but we could then probably change reform the constitution we could
00:01:46.400 probably make canada work without quebec well perhaps i mean i'm leaving with strength that
00:01:50.240 that chunk of the problem with quebec is we're going down a rabbit hole you know but it is the
00:01:54.800 geographic uh problem we have an interest when when you free trade but the country such uh where the
00:02:00.080 maritimes are subtly isolated and uh then we got some other issues to deal with yeah but they're not
00:02:04.800 exactly going to be a danzig corridor like i doubt they're going to arm it no to stop us from rolling
00:02:10.640 through and movies are rolling up from that the movie's coming from east russia yeah uh no i think
00:02:16.320 they it would be in everyone's interest if quebec left like quebec needs to trade with canada i i
00:02:22.320 think we'd probably come to some kind of anything other than pipelines we could probably get through
00:02:26.640 yeah actually we might have more leverage to get pipelines through quebec at that point you want your
00:02:31.040 argument out of me i mean we're preaching to the converted on this at the general yeah yeah you know
00:02:36.080 you know the question is whether we should even waste much time talking about the people's party
00:02:40.880 i mean a lot of people like bernie he's charming his old get out charm the wallpaper off the walls but
00:02:47.360 um you know nobody's voting for him was it less than one percent in the uh in the federal election
00:02:53.680 yeah i mean like they had their high point uh during clover during covid because it was a very real
00:02:59.680 reason for it they were the only party not in on vaccine passports and like aaron o'toole ran on
00:03:05.680 pro vaccine passport pro carbon tax all of these things there was a real purpose for the ppc then
00:03:12.560 uh poly have largely changed that but i i think the big risk for the federal conservative party now is
00:03:19.840 on immigration and their language is tighten is getting tougher on it but i i think people are i i
00:03:27.040 think the canadian public in general conservative voters in particular are well to the right of the
00:03:31.360 the conservative party on immigration right now i think if the ppc is to get traction on any major
00:03:37.360 issue and try to have some life come back and do it it's going to be on that
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