Alberta Separation: Judge QUASHES Petition, Disenfranchises 300,000+ Voters! w/ Lawyer Jeff Rath

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:01]to well over 300,000 Albertans to have their petition verified by Elections Alberta. Uh we think that this decision is incorrect in law and anti-democratic and we will be um appealing it as a result. Our cabinet and caucus will of course be meeting in the next couple of days to discuss the full context and u make some decisions after we've had a chance to talk it through. the fact that there are hundreds of thousands probably of Albertans who believe that should have been put to a question uh as well and the fact that they um the justice decided that there needed to be consultation. It's unclear what that means exactly in the future. What does it say about the fact that independence movements or just the question of independence movements in Canada um moving ahead is Canada, I don't know, a prison that you can't get out of with any any other meat.

[00:00:55]>> Well, >> by the way, just so everyone appreciates, Canada is the French version of CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a crown corporation, government funded media. That was one hell of a way to phrase the question.

[00:01:07]Let's hear what Danielle Smith has to say. You know, I guess we will have to talk with our Quebec counterparts to see what they think about uh this kind of ruling. I would say that it is a single judge um who's made a decision and we have now 700,000 Albertans whether they're on the remain side or the leave side who've said that they want to have this public debate. So, our citizen initiative petition was always meant to be uh very permissive and we we kept on having to modify it to ensure that that permissive quality was in there. We want to hear from Albertans. That's what we think democracy is and we'll be meeting with our our caucus and cabinet to uh further review the decision and and decide next steps. But as I say, since we believe that this one is incorrect in law and anti-democratic, we will be >> I'll give everybody the link to that in the chat. And for those of you who don't understand what we're talking about up in Canada, the province of Alberta has gotten somewhat frustrated with the Liberal government. They've been frustrated with the Liberal government for a decade. I did a video breaking this down a little while back. uh their frustration stems from what some believe to be economic exploitation of the resourcerich provinces in the country of Canada uh for the purposes of what they call equalization payments which are taxes that go up to the federal government that the federal government then redistributes to each province based on their respective economic needs. Alberta uh arguably, you know, you can have some dispute as to who pays the most, who should pay the most. They pay a lot and it goes to the so-called have not provinces by way of this equalization payment scheme. At the same time, the Liberal government has been crippling the Albertan people uh in their ability to exploit their natural resources in an economically viable and profitable manner. So that's the backdrop of the frustration. The culmination of the frustration occurred during the last federal election when Trump made a joke about Canada becoming the 51st state and uh the Carney government carnage Carney ran with that to rally Canada behind the liberal flag despite the fact that the Liberals have been in power for 10 years and wre havoc and devastation on the country. And now the Albertans say, "Liberals just won again after a decade of economic exploitation of Alberta. We want out."

[00:03:34]And they started this separation movement much like the one that we saw in Quebec that has sort of fizzled out because of, you know, reality that occurred in 78 and 95 were the two referendums in Quebec, the unique province to separate from the federation from Canada.

[00:03:51]Alberta got its petition going to, you know, get the requisite number of signatures, 177,000, I think, give or take. They almost doubled that number, and then they go to get this petition certified by the CEO, the lawyer is going to explain this here. And the news of the day is that after having acquired over 300,000 signatures, which was nearly double what was needed, they go to court and a single I'll use some words that I may not use when attorney Jeff Wrath is here, who's the lawyer in the file, arguably a rogue partisan hack of a judge. These are my words. These are not Jeff's. Uh comes out and says, "No, no, no. I'm dissolving your petition for reasons that make absolutely no sense." Now, some people out there find this very complicated.

[00:04:34]Others find it very boring. Uh for the Americans out there, you may or may not find this interesting, but it is damn interesting to find out what's going on in Canada. You know, we talk about the uh the movement to separate uh states. I forget what it's called now. The oh the everyone was talking about it after the last election. If Joe Biden got elected, you know, Florida would convention of states, I believe it's what it's called.

[00:04:55]And this is sort of like that up in Canada. The lawyer on the file, I know him, he's been on before. He's been doing the Lord's work when it comes to fighting government tyranny up in Canada is here. And I said I wouldn't talk too much, but I wanted to give everyone the broader context before I bring in attorney Jeffrey Wrath. Sir, I'm bringing you in right now. How goes the battle?

[00:05:14]>> It goes very well, actually. Thanks for having me on, David. I really appreciate it.

[00:05:18]>> Well, I mean, look, I try to make sense of this ruling. I try to make sense of the whole separation process, the Clarity Act in Canada. You know, even I never did this type of law. You know, we dabble in constitutional. It's complicated for an attorney, let alone for people trying to read uh, you know, CBC News summaries of a ruling that no one themselves is going to read. And if they do, Lord have mercy, if they can possibly understand it. Jeff, before we even get started, tell everybody who you are and what you're doing in this case.

[00:05:43]>> Yeah, sure. My name is Jeffrey Wrath.

[00:05:44]I'm a constitutional lawyer in Canada.

[00:05:47]Um, I've been practicing in the area of constitutional rights law in Canada for over 35 years. I've won cases at the Supreme Court of Canada. I've won I was the only lawyer in Canada to succeed in having every single CO order in their home province overturned um uh as being uh ultravirus the you know illegal in the province of Alberta. Um you know we're suing the government of Alberta on a massive COVID class action lawsuit over businesses that we say was illegal were illegally shut down during COVID.

[00:06:16]Uh we're suing both the governments of Canada and the government of Alberta over nu all the vaccine injuries, the horrible vaccine injuries that people have suffered as a result of governments lying to people about these vaccines being safe and effective. Um and now I'm legal counsel uh to the Alberta Independence Petition Movement and um we're moving forward to get Alberta out of Canada because we can't continue to live in such a depraved communist country. Now, I guess to flesh this out for people who may not be familiar, the parties, the players in this lawsuit right now, who uh is behind the initiative to get the petition going in the first place?

[00:06:54]>> Sure. Um the the petition petition proponent is a gentleman by the name of Mitch Sylvester, who uh I've been working with for year, you know, for the last, you know, couple years to free Alberta from Canada. Mitch is a great guy. He was the petition proponent. So his name was on the petition to get the necessary signatures uh to you know for the question do you agree that Alberta shall cease to be part of Canada to become an independent state put on the ref a referendum ballot this fall. So we did what we were supposed to do under the legislation. We literally organized um thousands of Albertans across the province. We had over 7,000 canvasers out collection colle collecting signatures. Legally, we needed to get 178,000 signatures. We had 301,620 signatures at the end of the day. So, almost twice as many signatures as we needed. And what happened was that a bunch of um uh federal, you know, um you know, federally supported chiefs and councils um brought an application to the court to have our petition struck as being unconstitutional because and I can't figure it out like why First Nations want Albertans to continue sending $15 billion a year to Quebec and sending, you know, an extra $50 billion a year to Canada and not keeping that money in Alberta to help their communities. But there you have it. These Indian chiefs would rather see money going to Quebec than having money stay in Alberta to help their communities. I can't figure it out other than some of them are actually funded by the Tides Foundation and George Soros, but you know, that's a different that's a different part of the story. So, these First Nations brought an application to have the petition declared unconstitutional. Well, we ended up in front of a justice of the court. Sorry.

[00:08:38]Go ahead. You know, before we even get there, just so that people can really understand this, you get 7,000 canvases, canvasers to go out there and get signatures. Now, at the time that, this is what I'm trying to figure out. Also, just practically speaking, you go out, you're signing papers, you know, email address, contact information, so they know it's real. Um, you nothing is certified then. You are literally just going and getting people to sign on to this clear question. Is there any process or any step that needed to be uh reach reached to even get to people's doors? gathered all of the signatures and again and beyond that I mean each canvaser had a you know a governmentisssued ID badge with a serial number every petition seat sheet was serial numbered every person who signed the petition had to present photo ID with you know a physical home address on it rural Albertans completely discriminated against through this process because if they had a PO box that didn't count as a you know as a as a home address so they had to have secondary and third pieces of ID that showed where they live. So, a lot of them couldn't sign and on and on. So, we went through that process. Then what was supposed to happen next is that Elections Alberta is supposed to count and verify these signatures. So, to make sure that unlike this other petition that went through, we didn't have Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse and uh tourists and people that didn't live in Alberta, you know, signing the petition, etc., which is called the verification process. The verification process was supposed to start when this judge issues a decision saying that she's quashing the decision on the basis that after this decision was approved by the chief electoral officer who does not have an obligation to consult First Nations.

[00:10:20]After he issued the decision, the government of Alberta didn't consult with First Nations people um you know over the whether you know whether they this petition should go forward. So in essence, what this judge did was she created a brand new legal duty that's never existed in Canadian law before.

[00:10:38]And that is specifically that governments in Canada, according to her, now have an obligation to consult with First Nations people over how the governments consult with their own electorates. Right?

[00:10:53]>> There's a number of things that don't make any sense about the consultation before the petition can get recognized.

[00:10:58]The issue here is it's not as though the separation had been approved by the government without consultation or you know voted in at at the provincial level and then authorized by the federal level. The question is, you get the 300,000 signatures. The CEO, what is that? The um chief >> chief electoral officer.

[00:11:14]>> The chief electoral officer. Does he What's the formal process of approving the petition? Well, the formal process is they have staff at Elections Alberta then count all the signatures to make sure that we've actually handed in 301,620 signatures, which we're confident that we've done because, as I've said, all of the uh all the signature sheets were serial numbered and serialized and we had people go through all of them and, you know, and physically verify and count all the signatures ourselves before we handed them in. We had them actually sorted into individual file folders by each canvaser's number. So that you know and those were all sequentially uh boxed and filed for elections Alberta. So we're confident in our numbers but so elections Alberta was supposed to verify this. So they would then double check that we've counted correctly and then they would you know check the signatures to make sure that the IDs corresponded with the addresses corresponded with the signatures. That was the process that was supposed to start taking place before this judge came out with this brand new notion under Canadian law. Specifically, that governments now have an obligation to consult with First Nations people as to how governments are to communicate with and consult with their own electorates.

[00:12:28]It's a bizarre decision, frankly.

[00:12:30]>> All right. And so now you get the signatures. They haven't even received they haven't been then formally certified right now. They say the CEO, >> no, but we've delivered all of the boxes to Elections Alberta. They were all sitting there waiting to be counted when this judge issued um you know her decision, quashing the petition. So basically saying that it never happened and all the boxes that we turned in don't exist and that they can't be counted by elections Alberta because the government didn't consult with First Nations, you know, after, you know, the decision was made to allow 7,000 people to go out and gather 301,000 signatures.

[00:13:06]It's it's a really goof, right? I mean, to put it in layman's terms, it's a very it's a really goofy decision. Well, because people have to understand, so it's not even as though it got like a seal of formal approval from Elections Canada or whatever. It hasn't been placed on uh on on the ballot for a referendum in what is it, November or next next fall. It's it's nowhere near anywhere that there's actual risk of concrete action materializing. We don't even know if the federal government's going to approve of it. And so this what's the nation? It's the Aabaska.

[00:13:38]>> Well, there there's a there's a number of them. There's the Atabaska Chipuan First Nation. There's um uh the Pan First Nation, the Blood Tribe, the uh the SixA First Nation are the Blackfoot tribes that you know that have intervened, right? And specifically, it's the Atabask Chipway First Nation where their chief brags about how he's funded by the Tides Foundation and how uh you know, he's he's proud of the fact that he has foreign interference helping him in subverting Canadian democracy. I mean, it's pretty bizarre, frankly. You got you gota you got to flesh this out for people who don't know. I'm I'm just looking at the connection cited in the media. A single grant from 2013 grant from the Tides Foundation. This the Tides Foundation is a Soros funded progressive organization. Correct.

[00:14:21]>> Right.

[00:14:23]>> Okay. And so the Tides Foundation in America for whatever the reason for however many times has funded native reservations or native tribes in Canada.

[00:14:33]Do we know why? Do you know why?

[00:14:35]>> Yeah. They're trying to interfere.

[00:14:36]they're trying to interfere in development of uh uh you know in oil and gas development in Canada you know because and and and your readers need to or your viewers need to take a step back and understand the broader geopolitical play that's involved here right so a lot of us in Canada believe that Mark Carney is an agent of communist China as you know as was Trudeau and I mean you know Carney was actually a lot of people believe that you know Carney was Trudeau's handler okay and you look at Carney going to Beijing and new world order strategic alliance with communist China. You know, all of the things that Trudeau and Carney did, if you look at who benefited the most from everything they've done, it's never been the Canadian public, it's always been communist China. So, a lot of people in Canada believe that what's going on strategically is that Trudeau and Carney are attempting to devalue all of the oil and gas assets in Canada. There's a number of things going on. They've doubled our money supply, so they've, you know, destroyed the value of the Canadian dollar. It's worth about half as much as it was um you know uh 15 years ago or less than half than it was 15 years ago. They are devaluing oil and gas assets in Alberta by landlocking them, not letting pipelines being built.

[00:15:48]Um preventing they have an West Coast tanker ban. So even if somebody wanted to invest in a pipeline, you know, private capital will go, why the hell would I invest in a pipeline when the government of Canada has made it illegal to take oil out of that pipeline and ship it offshore, etc. So what a lot of us believe is going on, Carney is simultaneously devaluing oil and gas assets in Alberta. Well, China is coming in and buying up um Alberta oil and gas assets at an a gross undervalue. Right? So, what's going to happen, we believe, is that the only time that we're going to get a new pipeline out of Alberta is once there's enough um you know, Chinese oil, you know, oil projects in Alberta to completely fill a pipeline so that all of the oil from Alberta goes directly to China. That's what is actually going on if you if you watch it. I mean, they're buying up a company called Nex uh they b completely bought a company called Nexon. They're buying up Meg Energy.

[00:16:43]They're buying a they bought a major share in Sonovis Energy. Sopek and ProChina are operating directly in in Alberta now. So, you know, you've got all this Chinese involvement in the in the Alberta oil field where they get to buy up Alberta oil and gas assets at pennies on the dollar because the Liberals have literally destroyed the value of the Alberta oil field with all of their stupid carbon taxes, um all of their stupid um regulations, carbon tax, emission caps, production caps, tanker bans, you all of this stuff is designed to devalue and lock in uh you know, Alberta oil and gas so that China can acquire it as cheaply as possible.

[00:17:24]That's what we believe is going on. And of course what um a lot of people believe is that and this is why Soros is involved and other you know agents other agents of China um through these so-called environmental front groups is that they are part and parcel of this whole process that's going on and you know and it's public record that they've been buying off you know some of the you know some of these chiefs you know to act as their you know as their ciphers um you know or their stocking horses to continue to you know damage um uh you know, oil and gas development in the province of Alberta for the benefit of China. So that's what's going on in the background. So now we're trying to get Alberta the hell out of Canada because as Albertans, we're sick and tired of sending $70 billion a year to Ottawa, including our, you know, um Canada pension payments and unemployment insurance payments, right? We send $70 billion a year to Ottawa. We get less than$20 billion dollars a year back in you know federal health transfers and other service or funding including Canada pension and unemployment insurance payments. So we are we over contributors to confederation to the tune of $50 billion a year and Albertans we have to borrow money every year to hire doctors to hire nurses to hire our teachers to build hospitals to pay for our roads. We're running deficit budgets of n up to9 billion dollars a year to pay for our services while we're being forced by this corrupt federal system to send like as an example your home former home province of Quebec. We send $15 billion a year to Quebec so that Quebec can run surplus budgets every year. So we're borrowing money to pay for, you know, to pay for our doctors, nurses, teachers, etc. So that we can give money to Quebec so that Quebec can run surplus budgets. It's the system's completely broken and you know so that's what we're fighting against and that's why we're trying to get Alberta out of Canada. And of course now we have these federally appointed judges you know issuing you know these incomprehensible rulings you know trying to prevent a vote from happening to prevent Albertans from expressing their democratic will to leave Canada. That's effectively what's happening in a nutshell. Now the judge is Shilene. No, don't say it's Sha.

[00:19:43]Shaina Leonard appointed by Justin Trudeau back in 2020. So you can you can you know draw your political bias conclusions from there. The question is this. I mean you must be relatively I mean you must be familiar with the Clarity Act. That was the um what the Supreme Court issued by way of guidance for separation after the Quebec referendum. And I I mean I've covered it a little bit just to explain it to people. It was the process that provinces are supposed to go through and the federal government in the event of another uh movement to separate and one of the criteria or one of the conditions was you have a clear question because the Quebec referendum of 9596 was clear as mud. Um and then you know then you submit it to a it gets the requisite amount of votes. You submit it to a referendum vote and then if it gets approved by majority it is simple majority. Correct.

[00:20:34]>> That's right. And the federal government just confirmed that in parliament. So a clear a clear majority is 50% plus one of the people voting in the referendum.

[00:20:42]Right.

[00:20:43]>> Okay. So clear question. It has to get the requisite signatures. It gets submitted on a specific a specific referendum or can it how do you submit the question to the people? Well, that's the that's what's become the issue right now. It has to be on a referendum ballot, right? And the Clarity Act itself, and that's why our question is drafted the way it is. It sets two requirements for the question. The first requirement is the question has to state clearly that the province intends to leave Canada or, you know, intends to no longer be part of Canada. And then the second part of the question is that it's to become an independent state. And by that we mean an international nation state, not a state or a part of the United States. So that's why the question is framed the way it is. That that wording comes directly from section 1 sub4 of the clarity act which states for a question for a question to be clear it must state clearly that the province is no longer to remain part of Canada and will become an independent state. So that's why the question, you know, is kind of a double-barreled, you know, do you agree that Alberta shall cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state? It's because that complies directly verbatim with the requirements of the Clarity Act.

[00:21:55]>> Okay. Excellent. And then the the one of the the um I would say the hanging chad or the mystery question is the Clarity Act says even after that just say it gets 60% approval of the of the provincial vote. First of all, it's only the province that votes. It's not other provinces. Correct. That's right.

[00:22:11]>> Okay. It says that as far as I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, the federal government can still decide to not recognize the separation. What's the criteria, the threshold, the consideration? Hypothetically, you can get there.

[00:22:22]>> Sure. I think the federal government though has a bit of a problem because I mean sure they the federal parliament can decide whether the question was sufficiently clear. But a question like ours that is clearly drafted directly in line with the wording of the Clarity Act, were they to decide otherwise, you know, we could, you know, the the government of Alberta could take the view that that's bad faith being exercised by the by the government of Canada and would then get us into um paragraph 155 of the secession reference, you know, which effectively opens the door to a unilateral declaration of independent dependence, you know, in the event that the government of Canada um were to act in bad faith or one of, you know, in in the context of discussions or negotiations leading up to the independence of a province, right? Okay. So I think it'd be very difficult for them to do because you know quite frankly were Alberta to declare itself independent from Canada unilaterally I think a number of entities would great you know happily you know just to get even with Carney for being the idiot that he is um recognize Alberta as an independent state internationally. I think the United States would happily recognize Alberta as an independent state. I think you know you look at you know Israel, Hungary, Argentina you know there's lots you know lots of countries around the world that don't particular don't regard Mr. Carney in very high regard like do you remember when Mr. Carney unilaterally recognized um Palestine >> that that's what I was just going to say not to get into the the approval or disapproval politics of it. if he recognized as an independent state the state of Palestine, um you know, he's gonna be hardressed to not recognize a province that goes through the process and is recognized by other countries. I just want to show the map because back in the day when Quebec was about to separate, one of the arguments was that it would physically uh divide Canada.

[00:24:17]Like you you'd have you'd have a landlocked area. There is already a part of Canada that is landlocked right near Maine, I believe. um or or it's it's landlocked by the states, but it's still part of Canada. The argument here was that, you know, Quebec would separate and it would create a different country that would break up Canada into two.

[00:24:34]That argument is not even true for Alberta. But um you know, so bad faith from the government. I I say they'll never recognize it hell or high water.

[00:24:42]It's just a question of what pretext they use to get there. But they're not even letting you get there right now because Judge She Shaina Leonard comes in and says you're not even getting it to the to the approval to get it to a referendum question potentially for the province to say no to because I say before anything has not even happened, you didn't consult with indigenous peoples who may be impacted in the event that it went through the process and then ultimately separated from Canada even though they themselves are on uh in theory, this is another question I have native land which is sort of separate from uh federal federal authority and so I don't know like wouldn't what wouldn't they stay part of Canada even if Alberta did separate to the extent they wanted >> if if first nations wanted you know and again that's the whole thing like all of this from our perspective you know discussions of first nations consultation and so on we say obviously there is a clear constitutional right for first nations people to be consulted in this process It just does not arise until after a yes vote until and until after a constitutional conference has been convened to deal with an amendment to the constitution to allow for Alberta to become independent. And there's a section of the Canadian Constitution.

[00:26:01]It's of 1982 called section 35.1.

[00:26:05]not you know not to be confused with 35 sub one but anyway different that's very esoteric but 35.1 that says in the event that there is a to be a devolution of federal powers with regard to Indians and Indian lands which is currently an exclusive federal power to another entity specifically you know contemplating a province in the context of independence right there has to be a constitutional conference held under 351 where first nations themselves have to be at the table to um be parties to um the discussions and negotiations in the context of being consulted with regard to the devolution of federal powers onto a province. Right? So what we say is there's a there's a constitutional process for this to happen. It just hasn't arisen yet. And the Supreme Court itself there was a decision called the secession reference which led to the clarity act which was the Supreme Court appining or stating clearly that the secession of a province from the Canadian Federation is perfectly lawful and perfectly legal provided that certain steps are followed. Okay. So they laid out the process for independence was which was then encapsulated into the federal clarity act. Right. But what the Supreme Court said in that decision in that secession reference is that the process of a referendum itself even a referendum on independence if there is a yes vote nobody's individual constitutional rights are at all impacted. And the reason that they say that no rights are impacted is because even a referendum vote, yes or no, do you want to remain part of Canada to become an independent state is merely an expression of political opinion by the populace. The populace according to the Supreme Court are not parties to the constitution, are not constitutional actors, cannot come to the table, the people are not represented at the table in the context of a constitutional conference. amending the constitution. The only constitutional players according to the Supreme Court are the federal government and the provinces. And then under section 35.1, First Nations have a unique privilege that no other group in our society has, which is to be consulted at a table at that constitutional conference with regard to, you know, their views and wishes concerning the devolution of federal powers with regard to Indians and Indian lands in the event of independence.

[00:28:38]Right? So, so that's why we say that this decision that we've appealed and tomorrow we'll be filing a what's called a stay application to have this decision put on hold until the signatures are counted and verified. Right. Um what we're saying is that the no rights are implicated, no First Nations rights are implicated because the Supreme Court has said so. Nobody's rights are implicated by people putting their name on a piece of paper. Nobody's rights or ability to hunt, trap, or fish, you know, has been impaired by Mitch Sylvester gathering signatures. They're certainly not going to be harmed by signatures being counted or that number being transmitted to the government or the government holding a referendum because all of those things are neutral from a rights perspective.

[00:29:25]But what's going on is that these Indian chiefs and the judiciary, right, are working together to prevent a vote from happening. Right? That's what this is all about. It's about, you know, the um, you know, judges who don't like the fact that they don't have an opinion other than yes or no on a referendum vote.

[00:29:44]They see themselves as special members of society that should have a special say over and above everybody else in terms of what their opinion is on uh, you know, on whether or not Alberta should be a free and independent country. And that's what we've been seeing is that we've been seeing judges playing politics from the bench engaging in the political process while wearing black robes with you know with red sashes you know appining that you know that somehow or other um you know people should not be allowed to communicate their wishes to their government in a peaceful and democratic fashion. It's quite shocking actually. It's it's a front to democracy as far as I'm concerned. Well, I mean what it's what it's basically doing is is even pre there is no interest or reason or necessity to consult until there's something that's you know needs to be consulted. It's it's sort of it's like what happened in Virginia um when they had that gerrymandering decision where they were putting a referendum to the people and the judge says I'm going to withhold adjudication on the legitimacy of the referendum question which was to redistrict in a way that was massively favorable to the Democrats says because if it doesn't pass I've got nothing to act on here the rights would be impacted or potential rights of the natives if the referendum got a yes and then the federal government said we're going to now separate and they didn't consult with the natives One could say, "Well, do you uh consult before or after the referendum vote?"

[00:31:08]And one would say, "Well, you consult after because if they vote no on the referendum, there's nothing to consider." But if they vote yes on the referendum, you're sort of you got something of a fail comple which is they voted yes and now it's the next step and they're going to say, "Whoa, whoa, we didn't even want to get here." But you're not even at the point where they approved the petition.

[00:31:25]>> No. And and then the the thing that the judge said, I want to bring it up here because I the duty to consult of the CEO. That's what uh was what I found confusing. Why can't I see the screen when I want to bring it up here like this? I'm going to share with it just to bring up a bit of the decision here.

[00:31:40]It's this bada bing bada boom. And add to stage here. So the does the CEO and I keep forgetting the freaking it's elections officer.

[00:31:49]>> No, chief electoral officer.

[00:31:51]>> Chief Electoral Officer. Does the CEO have the jurisdiction to determine whether the duty to consult arises? So this is the question here for those who might be confused. Does the person approving the petition or approving the signatures of the petition have the jurisdiction to determine whether or not there is a duty to consult? Who who would be the one that does the consultation with the First Nations in the first place?

[00:32:15]>> Well, according to the according to the court, it would be the government of Alberta. But what's there to consult over? Because I mean, first of all, these First Nations aren't saying, "Hey, we need to be consulted because we want to talk to you about the mode or method of consultation. You know, should you be doing it by some way other than petition? Should you be doing this? You should be doing that." They're asserting a veto. They're saying, "We want to be consulted because we don't want Alberta to ever leave Canada. We like our relationship with Canada. We like being lied to. We like our treaties being broken. We like, you know, having dirty drinking water or not having safe drinking water. We love living in poverty. We love watching the wealth of our province leave to go to Quebec and never come back. Those are all wonderful things and we don't ever want any of that to change. So, no, no, no. We do not want Alberta to become independent.

[00:33:02]Right? So, that's what they're saying.

[00:33:04]But that isn't consultation. They're asserting a veto. Right? And what is there to consult over? Because, as I've said, the petition process itself is a form of government consultation. So effectively the first nations are saying we have a right to be consulted with regard to the manner in which the government consults its electorate. So if you take that to its logical I wouldn't even say extreme. If you extend that logically first nations could say well hang on a second you know before you have any elections anymore in your province. We have to be consultant with regard to the timing of the elections.

[00:33:37]Who's allowed to run in the elections?

[00:33:39]Because if you have a separatist party running in the election, of course, if a separatist party were to win, they could then take Alberta out of Canada without a, you know, without a petition. They could just invoke the referendum act. We have to have a say in all of that. And we have a veto over which parties run in the election, who gets to run in what writings, all of that. It's it's ludicrous. But that's the implication of this decision. And all of us are scratching our heads going and keep in mind I mean I won the Mkasu case in 2006 at the Supreme Court which is the leading case on treaty compens you know consultation in Canada. I was at the Supreme Court in two decisions called Haida and TACU the year before you know which you know were the leading cases on you know uh consultation with regard to Aboriginal rights. So you know I understand and I know this area of law better than any lawyer in the country.

[00:34:30]I've won more consultation cases than any lawyer in the country. And on one hand, I went, "Wow, it'll be great to be going back to being a treaty and aboriginal rights lawyer because it I can never lose a case ever again. All I have to do is assert that there's a treaty relationship, right? And that the government didn't consult and therefore my client is irreparably harmed and I should be granted an injunction and life should stop for everybody." But that makes absolutely no sense at law which is what this judge has been doing because their first you know before you can stop everything from happening you have to be able to clearly identify what right has been infringed right by you know by the government before a duty to consult arises and again gathering signatures on a petition it doesn't infringe any treaty rights that I'm aware of um doesn't infringe any you um you know uh you know hunting rights, trapping rights, uh fishing rights, rights to reserve land, you know, rights to you know carry on your mode and way of life throughout the track surrendered as if you never entered into treaty. I mean, it doesn't infringe any of those things. And I can tell you because like one of the big wins that, you know, I that I got in the MKU case that most lawyers always forget about um is that the Supreme Court of Canada in Mkasu said that the commissioners report, so those are the reports that went to Parliament and all of the oral promises of the treaty commissioners formed part of the treaty. So they're not um oral aids to interpretation of the treaty.

[00:36:02]They don't have to be considered in the interpretation of the written words of the treaty. they form part of the treaty. So to the extent that the treaty is inconsistent with those oral promises, you know, the whole treaty has to be interpreted to give effect to the oral promises. Right? So that's a very expansive right. But I'm not aware of any rights anywhere in any of the oral promises under any of the treaties in Alberta where First Nations were promised either orally or in writing that in the future you will have the right to dictate how governments of the territory will consult with their First Nations or I'm sorry will consult with their citizens on a going forward basis with regard to electoral matters or consult with you know you have a right to veto how you know what citizens are allowed to vote on in terms of how they want to be governed. Right? There's no such promise in any of those treaties that's being infringed. So this is this assertion that somehow or other that because ultimately you know people are seeking Alberta to um you know leave Canada and become an independent country that this offends treaty rights I say is simply wrong. And what happened was this earlier judge and it was an obiter comment that he made he said well you can't change the parties to the treaty right. So the the very fact that you want to change the party to the treaty from Canada to Alberta, that's a violation of the treaty right, that breaks the treaty. Well, that's wrong at law because Canada wouldn't exist as a country if you could not transfer the rights of or the obligations under the preconfederation treaty. So the treaties that pre-existed Canada as a country from Great Britain to Canada. Think about that as a lawyer. Um uh you know, David, you know what I'm talking about, right? there was a process for doing that. So when Canada became a country, it's written right into the terms of union that all of the previous obligations owed by Great Britain um to the Indians of Canada were then transferred to Canada by act of the British Parliament. Well, section 35.1 of the Constitution Act 1982 would require that same process to take place.

[00:38:08]So again, First Nations, Alberta independents, massive opportunity for them. They get to come to the table with all of their outstanding grievances, a list of all of the broken treaty promises, all the treaty violations that have been made by Canada. There's billions of dollars worth of of treaty violations that could be brought to the table. Rights to, you know, post-secondary education, rights to, you know, indexing of annuities under treaties. um you know uh uh you know the fact that you know that their uh their gathering rights have been interfered with without you know without compensation or without any thought to um you know how it is that indigenous people you know can operate on the land in the face of all of the ongoing development. You know, all of those things are legitimate grievances that they can bring to the table and resolve in the context of these negotiations.

[00:38:56]But instead of seeing this as a massive opportunity, what's happening is, you know, all the chiefs are being wound up by these left-wing Tides Foundation funded lawyers that, you know, want to fight, fight, fight to stop everything from happening as opposed to recognizing that this is a massive opportunity for First Nations people. I wouldn't be pursuing this given that I spent my entire career fighting for the rights of indigenous people in Canada. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe that First Nations people would be substantially better off in a free and independent Alberta than remaining in the communist hell hole that Canada has become.

[00:39:31]>> Let me read the conclusions and then I'm I got a question as to what the solution is here. It says conclusions Alberta's application to strike evidence partially granted. The entire Palanchuk affidavit paragraphs 45 to 50 uh of the first writer affidavit are struck. You have to might have to explain this. These are basically the um uh these are the signature petition sheets. Correct. That that >> No, no, no. These were this was evidence that was put in by the First Nations to support their applications for judicial review.

[00:39:56]>> So, CEO decision is quashed on the following grounds. The CEO's interpretation and application of the transitional provisions was an error of law rendering the CEO decision unreasonable. CEO's decision not to reject the second proposal in the face of the Sylvester decision was an error rendering the CEO decision unreasonable.

[00:40:14]Crown failed to meet its duty to consult with the applicants. Given the CEO decision is quashed on three grounds declined to consider the constitutionality of the improve provisions. That would be the question that was submitted. Correct.

[00:40:27]Uh yes. Well, the whole petition process, right? And and the underlying legislation because they were also seeking to strike the entire citizens initiative act uh as being con unconstitutional.

[00:40:39]>> Well, and the judge >> and the judge in that instance showed, you know, a a very unusual level of restraint.

[00:40:46]>> Yeah. Because now now she's got she's got in her back pocket even if the petition is valid, we can declare the legislation unconstitutional.

[00:40:53]>> Who know who knows what she was thinking. Now, now the question is this.

[00:40:56]The question is this. Now, I mean, what does she want to do? She wants Danielle Smith to consult with the indigenous communities to discuss separation. And politically, Lord knows how the media would spin that. If Danielle Smith now goes and starts holding consultation conferences on indigenous communities to separate if Alberta separates, the optics of that would be less than favorable for Danielle Smith if that's what the court is demanding that she demanding that she does. now.

[00:41:25]>> Well, that's why I'm saying it's an inherently political decision. It's effectively foisting on the premier and voicing on the Alberta government um uh political steps that the court says that they have to take in order to have a petition under the Citizens Initiative Act go forward. But the bizarre thing about all of this, and I'm not sure whether you caught it when you read the decision, but it was also in the first decision. Both this decision and um uh the uh early feesby decision both said that you know it's the citizens initiative act that's the problem. It's allowing citizens to express their wishes to the government by way of petition that's the problem. The government itself retains the jurisdiction under section one of the referendum act to simply call the referendum question in compliance with the clarity act if the government chooses to do that. So we have this bizarre circumstance where calling a referendum is perfectly well consultation with First Nations, perfectly legal and perfectly constitutional for the government to do.

[00:42:23]But if the government adds the step of having the citizens, you know, ask for it by way of petition so that the government knows that there's sufficient support for this to go forward, that's unconstitutional because that's when First Nations consultation had to take place. It's a very odd decision and that's why I say that it completely flies in the face of all of the decided law and all of the cases, you know, that I've been involved in arguing over the last 35 years.

[00:42:48]>> Now, now you're going to appeal it. Uh the question was when was this supposed to be on a time frame submitted to the people of Alberta for an actual vote on the actual referendum?

[00:42:57]>> Well, there's still time. I mean, there's October 19th is when the referendum vote is supposed to take place, right? There's rumors of foot in Alberta right now that because of the fact that so many members of the province or so many citizens of the province are so angry over what this judge has done that there has been a sw a ground swell of demand. Danielle Smith's office has been inundated with emails and angry letters and phone calls. So there's a rumor floating around that on Thursday and apparently they booked airtime. So, I'm not sure whether it's to defend that stupid with Carne or for this, but we're hearing rumors that on Thursday they're going to announce the referendum question on independence because um you know the A the judge says it's legal and b um you know 301,620 largely conservative voters signed a petition demanding that this question go forward. And then there's this other petition that we haven't really talked about, but there's last summer there was a petition that went forward um by a very odd character in Alberta politics by the name of Thomas Lucas, a Polish gentleman. I'm told by the polls that his name is pronounced Wukashuk, but anyway, little Tommy Wukashuk had this petition where he was asking the opposite of our question, which is do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada? Well, that petition went forward under very different conditions than ours. they didn't have to verify ID. So, they had lots of Disney characters and superheroes and tourists signing the petition, right? And um uh they did have a very stringent process, but that petition got 400,000 signatures. And we know that lots of our people were signing that petition so they could vote no, right? So, we now have had over 700,000 Albertans, and there's probably a lot of duplicates between the two petitions, but whatever. um who've signed um petitions demanding that there be a referendum on whether Alberta should you know should leave Canada or not. So I think that's what the government's looking at and I guess we'll see what they're going to do with regard to the wording of the question on Thursday and obviously from our perspective politically, you know, unless Danielle puts forward a question that complies with the Clarity Act so that it's a constitutional question that would have the effect on a yes vote of taking Alberta out of Canada. If she doesn't do that, from our perspective, um, she's broken faith and broken trust with the United Conservative Party membership and will have lost her moral authority to lead the party.

[00:45:19]>> I want to get to some question. I'm double checking in our local community if anybody's got any specific questions uh that I didn't get to. Uh, while I do that though, that's what's going on in Alberta. So, you'll appeal. Uh, Daniel, >> we have appealed. Yeah, >> you've appealed. Is the um Alberta government have they formally appealed?

[00:45:36]Let me see something. Or have >> No, but they said they will. and I I imagine they'll be coming in behind us.

[00:45:40]We just thought it was a well, we we didn't we wanted to get an appeal filed quickly because we're also applying for a stay of her decision. So, tomorrow we're going to be filing a stay application with the Court of Appeal to have this decision stayed so that Elections Alberta can verify um the signatures and count the signatures um uh on our petition so that the government knows how many signatures are actually verified signatures um for the purpose of the referendum going forward.

[00:46:09]So, we're going to be making that court application tomorrow. Maybe on Thursday if Danielle announces, you know, announces a question that's the same as our question, that stay becomes moot.

[00:46:19]But we'll, you know, we'll wait and see what happens. But we obviously, you know, we take all of this very seriously and we want to make sure on behalf of the 301,620 Albertans that we represent, that we're taking every prudent step to protect the rights of these citizens.

[00:46:36]>> It's a population of Alberta, 5 million.

[00:46:38]>> Well, less than that, it's about 4.6 six 4.7 and then we've been flooded by Trudeau and Carney with all these temporary foreign workers, right? That's a different story. That's another reason a lot of people want to vote for independence is that we're sick and tired of, you know, companies like Tim Hortons and, you know, and others saying, "Oh, we don't have enough n, you know, for indigenous workers or people in Alberta to work. So we need to bring in you know people from India and Pakistan and you know you know uh uh Afghanistan with their families so that they can fry donuts for us and and uh because nobody in Alberta has that skill you know I ignore the 20% youth unemployment but please continue flooding Alberta with people from India because we need more people to work at minimum wage making donuts and coffee.

[00:47:27]Well, no, but also they they they bill them out at 35 bucks an hour. So, the company itself then takes the uh takes the excess and pays them an exploit of minimum >> and the government and the government subsidizes temporary foreign workers, international mobility program workers and refugees and they don't subsidize companies for hiring Albert, you know, the the children of Albertans, right?

[00:47:46]So, that's a big bone of uh that's a big bone of contention in Alberta. One of the reasons that a lot a lot of Albertans want Alberta the hell out of Canada is so that we can control our own immigration and get back to living in a a sane and reasonable province or country at that point.

[00:48:02]>> Yeah, you got F. Sha over in our local community says First Nation leaders are being bribed by US NOS's in China. Their feathers and incense is screwing over the Canadians most effing people identify as it's as corrupt as Minnesota daycare. want to see.

[00:48:19]>> No, I think there's I think there's a lot of truth to that, you know. I think there really is.

[00:48:23]>> Well, what's Ali Michael says Alberta may need to enlist the aid of the US to become an independent state. What percent of the population is from Ontario in Alberta? Asks not all there.

[00:48:33]What what sort of what sort of exodus has there been from the east to Alberta?

[00:48:36]>> Well, there's been but it's been quite the opposite. David, it's been really interesting. We've had lots of people and I'm aware of a lot of people that have been selling their businesses in Ontario and selling their businesses in British Columbia and elsewhere to move to Alberta to be here for independence.

[00:48:51]Because of course, one of the big things about Alberta becoming independent is that we're going to be able to completely eliminate federal income tax, capital gains tax, carbon tax, excise tax, you know, all of these federal taxes we're going to be able to afford to get rid of because Alberta will have the highest number of barrels per oil of oil per capita of any country in the world, including Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Right? So, you know, we have a massive oil resource in this province.

[00:49:18]it's being locked in the ground by, you know, I say Chinese communists in Ottawa um for their own nefarious purposes. And once we free that up and get rid of all of the federal regulations t killing our oil industry, you know, we should be able to double oil production in Alberta within five, you know, 5 to 10 years because foreign capital is going to flood into Alberta. You know, once we have the lowest corporate income tax rate in North America, zero income tax for executives and their employees, we'll have the best hockey teams because what hockey players wouldn't want to live in a in a tax-free regime where they don't have to pay income tax, right? Um, you know, it's going to be wonderful. So, those are the kinds of things that we're looking at on a going forward basis, you know, is how much better off Alberta's going to be. And for the United States, there's a huge benefit, right? Alberta will be open to American financial institutions. they'll be welcome, you know, to open in Alberta. You know, there'll be no more dairy cartel. So, Alberta will be open to importing, you know, American dairy, right? Um, we'll have a complete, it's like complete reciprocal free trade agreement with the US, zero tariffs on both sides of the border, and uh a massive ability uh of US companies and uh others to invest in Alberta. right now, who in their right mind from the States wants to invest in Alberta when we have these massive carbon taxes, offshore tanker bans, all these other things, right? When you can go invest in Venezuela, you can go invest um uh in um uh uh Texas, you can invest in Alaska, and you don't have all of these stupid taxes and regulations, you know, beding you. No, I said after the freezing of the bank accounts, nobody in their right mind should ever do business in Canada when the government can unilaterally seize bank accounts without any due process. Not just because they did it against your political adversaries. If they can do that to anybody, that's not a country that you can do business in ever again.

[00:51:10]And they have >> I saw I saw I saw a post online today.

[00:51:13]People can't even post replies on Facebook anymore because it constitutes news content. So people can post whatever they they can post whatever they want about Alberta independence. And if anybody tries to reply, they're now frozen out of replying on Facebook because it constitutes news content if you try to argue the opposite side of Alberta independence. So effectively, anything that runs counter to the federalist narrative in Canada on on on at least on Facebook is now deemed to be news content and has been censored online. I mean, thankfully X is still not there yet. Um, you know, I think Elon will pull out of Canada before he sees to that. But, you know, of course, Mark Zuckerberg, California Democrat, is already helping Mark Carney censor Canadians on Facebook.

[00:52:01]>> I'm looking to see. Yeah. Know, it's it's wild. I want to see if I if I haven't if anybody has any questions that I haven't gotten to, so I'm just looking. Uh, what is to say that the Americans wouldn't just take over Alberta because of those fossil fuels?

[00:52:13]The there there will not be that type of takeover. Uh what what I did suggest would happen and I think unfortunately I think I see it being on the way to reality is that the Carney government's going to give a little bit uh to Alberta. Let them exploit their resources a little bit more freely and then say so don't leave us like a like a like an abused spouse. But I also said what's going to happen is Alberta's never separating from the feder. It's never going to happen. They're never going to let it happen and it's not going to be an armed uprising. So right now you're just it'll be 10 20 years of um paparass in in front of courts because you'll have to appeal this decision if there's not an immediate remedy.

[00:52:48]>> I think respectfully uh David I we disagree with you. I think we have a plan to go forward you know relatively quickly. We don't see the negotiations with Canada such as they are taking more than six months. I mean Alberta has a very large functioning government right?

[00:53:03]Um we already have a revenue department as an example. We have a parks department that can take over um you know the uh uh you know the national parks. We have you know uh provincial sheriffs. I mean the one thing that we have to you know stand up from scratch is going to be an Alberta armed forces and air force. But I mean that's not going to be very difficult to do. I mean half of the former s you know half of the um retired special forces guys in Canada have retired to Alberta. So I mean we already have a very strong training cadre in place in Alberta to start training you know an Alberta army.

[00:53:34]And you know, a lot of us are looking forward to having an Alberta Air Force.

[00:53:38]We'd have our own fleet of water bombers. So whenever the forest fire arsonists try to light a forest on fire and scream about climate change, we can just dispatch 10 water bombers and put out the fire. You know, like there'd be a there's a lot of good things to be said for Alberta independence. And a lot of this could be done really quickly because again, we're going to have a $50 billion a year fiscal capacity surplus once we get rid of having to provide welfare to the rest of Canada. Oh, >> Jeeoff, I hope from from your mouth to God's ears, I hope I'm wrong. And I hope maybe I'm getting a little too cynical in my old age. I just don't think I am.

[00:54:09]And I don't think >> No, no. I I hear you, David, but I mean, we wouldn't be moving forward if we didn't think that we had a you know, that we had a plan to get us there expeditiously and not uh, you know, not after 10 or 15 years of spinning around in circles and pulling our hair out or whatever, right? So, you know, we have a we have a plan moving forward. We're continuing to execute that plan. We're hitting all of our marks and doing everything that we want to do within that plan. You know, considering that, you know, a year ago Jason Kenny was referring to us as, you know, just a bunch of, you know, radical extremist, five drunks in a Dsbury bar that couldn't organize a twocar funeral procession, you know, stuff like that.

[00:54:46]We've come a long way and I think the the entire country is taking us seriously. And I mean Mark Carney and other premers are furious that Carney's apparently allegedly making concessions to Alberta because Albertans are threatening to leave etc etc. So we're already having a very positive benefit you know on Alberta.

[00:55:06]Scott Bessant the US Secretary of Treasury that anybody who really understands the power of the US Treasury Secretary knows that Scott Bessant is really the second most powerful man in the world. Right? He said that, you know, basically talking to Jack Bobiac, that he'd welcome an independent Alberta, that an independent Alberta could have a pipeline, you know, through the United States to the US Pacific Northwest tomorrow if we wanted it as far as he was concerned. So, you know, there's a lot of positives moving forward for Alberta and Alberta businesses and, you know, we're looking forward to pursuing that, you know, free of, you know, free of all of the restrictions that are being placed on us by the communist Chinese regime in Ottawa. Has there been any uh movement on a little bit of a different topic and I note you don't have much time left.

[00:55:47]Have they identified which MPs were wittingly or unwittingly uh became Chinese assets or have they not?

[00:55:53]>> No no no the the continued um uh inhabitants of parliament by Chinese communist agents is still a state secret. So CEUS and the RCMP will not release the identities of the MPs that have been compromised by communist China. Many of them still sit in parliament and I'm sure many of them including Michael Ma um who was you know appears to be an agent of communist China. He's the guy that said there's no slave labor in China and you know weaguer death camps nothing to see here.

[00:56:19]You know that guy right? Um he's in Carney's cabinet now. So you know they won't tell us how many Chinese communist agents are actually sitting in Carney's cabinet. You know we suspect quite a few and we suspect that Carney is one of them.

[00:56:32]>> Well either wittingly or unwittingly.

[00:56:35]Uh, someone asked, "Are you working pro bono?" Is this do you do you do you need to rely on public uh crowdsourcing for for funding?

[00:56:42]>> Well, we Yeah, we're No, we're you if people want to donate, they can donate to uh Alberta Prosper. Go to Alberta Prosperity Project.com. There's a donate button. Um I I personally have been working proono and haven't been billing for my legal time on the file, but you know, there's other lawyers involved.

[00:56:57]There's lots of work involved. There's lots of expenses involved. Um you know, etc. So, you know, all grassroots donations are are gratefully um accepted. And again, that's albertaraprossperitypro.com.

[00:57:09]And while you're there, if you want to download an excellent um document, it's called the value of freedom, a draft fiscal plan for an independent Alberta.

[00:57:20]And it lays out how much better off Alberta is going to be as a free and independent country with a fiscal capacity surplus of $50 billion.

[00:57:29]>> This is it. This is it right here.

[00:57:31]That's the Yeah, that's the landing page for the Florida Prosperity Project. And I think if you go down to page two, you can find the the value of freedom document. So, there's there it is, value of freedom um right there.

[00:57:41]>> Um and there's a two-page for people that don't want to read a 50-page uh fiscal document. There's also a two-page summary that's very helpful. Um you know, including how uh treaty and Aboriginal rights will be respected in a free and independent Alberta. Um, it's a great document and uh, you know, I I I urge people to, you know, to take a look at it and understand what an what an awesome place Alberta is going to be once we finally free ourselves from uh, from Canada. Al >> Alberta is it's it's it's a absolutely beautiful province. Um, and uh, Jeff, I mean I I I you're on a mission. I like it. I'm not optimistic, but that might just be the weight of the world crushing each and every game we ever had.

[00:58:20]>> I've won lots of cases and I've done lots of things that people have told me I was never going to do and I was never going to win. So that's uh you know that's that's the spirit that I move forward with and uh you know I think every day there's something providential that happens that you know that gives us all you know gives us all hope that we're on the right track. So uh you know there's a bunch of developments today that I was really excited about. a number of First Nations people coming on board, a number of First Nations chiefs that have been reaching out to say that they support what we're doing. A recent poll came out um actually saying that 46% of rank and file indigenous people support Alberta independence, you know, so there's lots of really really positive things. I think we're we're already, you know, we're over 45% support across the province. Um, and you know, because a lot of our people, you know, because of the bank account seizures, because of a lot of that, you know, wouldn't sign the petition because they didn't want their name on a list that the government would have. A lot of our people won't answer polls because they don't want their bank account seized and so on. I actually think that, you know, we're probably polling in the high 40s right now, right? So I, you know, I think just with the right campaign and moving forward with a consistent professional message moving forward to the referendum, we can get this over the top and we can free Alberta from the clutches of uh of Ottawa and what's become communist Canada.

[00:59:37]>> Send me all the links. I put your ex account out there. I'll put everything in the pinned comment and uh we'll do a follow-up if and I mean we'll do a follow-up for sure. And uh Jeff, keep on fighting the good fight.

[00:59:48]>> It's always fun, brother. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate All right. Have a good one.

[00:59:51]>> Okay. You too.