Alberta has historically been treated as a territory rather than an equal partner within Confederation, with the federal government controlling key aspects of its economy including natural resources, railways, and trade policies since the 1905 Alberta Act, which has led to ongoing tensions and discussions about Alberta's sovereignty and independence.
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LIVE! Let's Talk Alberta | Brooks May 25Added:
Clear.
Okay.
>> You want to use a mic? I'll give another one.
>> Oh, okay.
>> No, no problem. Just give me another one then.
Good.
>> I don't have to be behind.
>> Good evening.
>> I know there's not a lot of people here, but we're going to start. Apparently, those darn bandits had a parade because they won something. And then there's 4.
So I am gonna ask if you feel comfortable just even slide up a table.
So because it it'll look better. If you don't want to, I don't care. I'm not going to be bossy. But it's really hard to speak to nothing in the not not that you're not nothing. I'm sorry.
>> Okay. I'm being bossy. My brother's here. He knows that's my normal.
So I'm going to thank you all for coming. If you're hungry, please have some pizza. The exits are there. There's four of them. So, please note those. The bathrooms are to the back.
Um, I haven't MCed for a while, so I am a little out of practice. I couldn't do it for a little while because I got uh the very first meeting we ever had before we even had petition sheets, before we even had badges.
Elections Alberta. Apparently, I'm under investigation for them.
So then I couldn't do any MCing anymore.
>> What do you Am I in the wrong place, Max?
Okay.
So, thank you for coming. This is a Let's Talk Alberta event. I am going to say that the event is um all the events are sponsored with donations.
So, there are donation pales there and they will probably go around. Um, but if you if you like what we're doing, there are ways to donate online as well.
Um, we're going to open in prayer if I can have Brad.
There we go. No, but but I caught his attention, so maybe he'll be quiet.
Lord, we ask that you could enter this um building tonight and we ask that you enter with our speech and our thoughts.
We thank you for this great country, for the flat lands, for the mountains, for the rivers. We ask that you be with all those who are still putting seed in the ground. They are literally our bread and butter. And we thank you, Lord, for being with us tonight. and we ask that you just be with the speakers and guide them and um have their message be clear in Jesus' name. Amen. So, our first speaker tonight is Shane Mikl and he's going to um kind of maybe give you some insights that you had never heard of about Alberta history.
That's kind of his bag. He could write a book, but we don't let him do that. Read the book.
I'm I'm done. That's your mic.
Apparently, I touched it and it was the wrong thing.
>> He had it set right.
>> I know. So, there we go. I'm gonna put this back down.
>> Max, Max, >> good evening. So, what I am, as Patty alluded to, I'm kind of a history buff and uh I'm going to talk a little bit about the historical inact uh relationship between uh what is now Alberta and uh the federal government.
So in the 1880s to about 1903 1904 there was a huge settler movement mainly made up of Americans and they started forming communities all throughout what was then the Northwest Territories in both what is now Alberta and Saskatchewan.
And they they formed towns and they were very interested in the Northwest Territories becoming part of the United States. And they formed towns. How many here know of the little spot on the map called Eona?
There's a few. Uh, I live about six miles from Eona. Do you know what Eona stands for? The United States of North America.
The town of Rimi. How many know where Rimi is? A lot more know that one. Its original name was Kansas Ridge.
The city of Erdri was Yankee Valley.
The There's a little town not very far.
Well, it's not a town. It's a community hall. Um it was a United Church at one time. Uh and now it's a a hall and museum. Uh in the little uh region called Dakota.
And all throughout Alberta and Saskatchewan, there's towns that still have American sounding names or originally had American sounding names.
And this made the the federal government very nervous because it's a lot easier to absorb a territory than it is to absorb a a province. And that was one of the main reasons why they decided that they needed to carve out two more provinces in the Northwest Territories.
In 1903 on the steps of the of the Manitoba legislature, Sir Clifton Sifton, Clifford Siftton made the following statement.
We desire and all Canadian patriots desire that the great trade of the prairie shall go to enrich our people to the east to build up our factories and our places of work and in every legitimate way to our prosperity.
Now, why would we care what some gentleman said way back in 1903?
Well, he was one of the the the authors of the Alberta and Saskatchewan Acts.
So, in 1905 on September 1st, the Alberta Act uh was brought into to legislation as well as the Saskatchewan Act.
How many here have had a chance to ever read the Alberta Act?
I would encourage you to go to the Government of Alberta website and download a copy of it. It's not very long, but it will change your perspective on on our relationship with Ottawa. In there, we are given the the uh name of a province, but we are given the rights and responsibilities of a territory. So, right from the get-go, we were never treated as an equal partner within Confederation.
In 1913, the Railroad Act amendments were were brought into being by Ottawa. And now, what did that do?
That made it so that regional railways could not cross provincial uh lines.
So, if you were shipping to to Thunder Bay, let's say, you would you would load at let's say Stler, uh it they would have to change over at the Saskatchewan border and again at the Manitoba border and again at the Ontario border. They could not uh haul it all the way through. The interesting thing is is that Eastern Railways were made exempt.
So it only referred to to Western Canadian railways.
And in 1943, by 1943, most of the the regional railways had been put out of business because they just couldn't afford to operate. And then a new railway was formed, and you now know that as Canadian National Railways. Uh, and they absorbed all of the the assets of all of those those uh defunct regional railways.
In 1930, natural resources transfer agreement was agreed upon between all the provinces which transferred all of the control over natural resources to the provincial control. But Ottawa made it very clear at the time that they did not consider Alberta and Saskatchewan to be worthy of the national uh the the natural resources transfer agreement. So they said that they would still have some control over over uh Alberta and Saskatchewan's resources.
But on December 11th of 1931, the king decreed that and brought into effect the statute of Westminster.
Now the statute of Westminster has a lot of misunderstandings around it. But one thing that it did do is it gave the sovereignty over land and resources to the people in care of the provinces.
So all federal land that is in the province of Alberta is actually Alberta's land, not the federal governments. And if if we were to enforce that agreement from from 1931, we would never have had Jasper happen because we could have been there and we could have rolled in and helped the the town.
In 1935, the then voluntary Canada Wheat Board was formed and it was voluntary for all of Canadians until 1946 when it was made mandatory for Western Canadians.
And it stayed in effect until 2012.
And what that did is, okay, if I was a uh a member of of a a citizen of Ontario and I wanted to sell my grain to the United States, what how did I do that? I would roll up roll my truck up to the bin, load my grain, and go across the line and sell to the United States. If I was west of the Manitoba border, if I wanted to sell to the United States, I would have to roll up to my bin, load my truck, take it to the local elevator, offload it, go around to the far side of the elevator, load back up, paying a fee to uh to the the wheat board, and then I could sell it to the United States.
Now, the reason that this got got was gotten rid of is because Western Canadian farmers had had enough of it.
And we had 13 farmers in Alberta and Saskatchewan that finally decided that it was worth going to jail for. And they ran the border. And they spent between 6 months and a year in jail because of it.
And finally, the wheat board was dissolved in 2012.
From 1947 to 1950, we had just discovered vast reserves of oil. And in 1947, the federal government decided to do control our oil pricing and all pipelines.
So, we could not set our own prices here.
Max, can you turn this this mic down just a smidge?
Uh and uh what that meant is uh they set every price that we set and they set it uh so that we could not sell very well and we couldn't put pipelines in without their permission. And that lasted until 1950 and uh at that time then we got back control of our our oil pricing and and pipelines.
And then in 1965, how many here are old enough? We got a fairly young crowd tonight. Uh how many here though are old enough to remember the great flag debate of 1965?
There's a couple.
So what what happened? So our then prime minister uh Lester B. Pearson decided that that we needed to to have a flag that we could call our own.
and he wanted he said that he wanted a flag that that was representative of Canada.
And so the design of the flag the two bars on the side are supposed to represent the two oceans and the symbol in the middle is supposed to be the people.
Well, he chose the sugar maple which is only found east of the Manitoba border.
Uh it's not found in western Canada. and defe and Baker got up and in the House of Commons and argued that it should be the Manitoba maple uh which is found from coast to coast. Pearson did not like this. So he did closure on the bill and forced it to vote and not a single Western Canadian MP uh voted for for the the Maple Leaf. Instead, they decided, they figured that we should stay with the red enzyme, which is still uh one of our official flags. We actually have two official flags. But the controversy was so great that in 1967, two years later, during uh Canada, the centennial, many uh cities and pro uh towns in Western Canada would not fly the maple leaf.
They would only fly the red enzyme. But by the time I started school in the very early 1970s, it had already been memory hold. Never heard anything about it until I was doing research years later.
1973 to 1974, we have the the oil export taxation policies and Alberta's oil profits were were capped.
Now, how many of you heard that in the 70s we had oil shortages?
Here's Yes.
Now, imagine that you are an oil company and you're you're uh producing oil, but if you produce overproduce from what Ottawa tells you, you have to send all your profits to them. Would you produce that oil? I wouldn't. And that is what caused our oil shortages. And that lasted for a year, actually 18 months that that bill was in in effect. And our then prime our premier uh Peter Lahheed fought tooth and nail to get that repealed and he finally did. Uh but six years later Pierre Elliot Trudeau brought another one on us and that was the the national energy program. So in 1980 they brought that in. Now that was everything that they had in the 73 to 74, but they added one thing to it and that was that we also had to make selling to the east a priority at their set price, not ours.
And that stayed in effect until 1988.
And then uh Prime Minister Brian Maloney repealed it. But he didn't do it because he loved the Western Canada. He did that specifically because oil prices dipped so low that it costs more to uh enforce the national energy program than they were getting out of it. So it it just wasn't economically feasible for them to continue with it. But at the time that he brought it in, several ministers within Trudeau's uh government at the time made statements such as we must bring this in in order that Alberta does not become the economic engine of Canada. And they they specifically said that was the reason they were bringing in the national energy program was to make sure that we did not become the economic engine.
Well, we have become the economic engine despite all of what everything that they've done.
During the 1980s and 1990s, we had several things that that happened. And uh we had the constitution be brought home in ' 82. We had the 85 referendum in Quebec. Then we had the the the 95 Quebec referendum. Now, we can thank the the uh the second referendum because at the time the the Canadian government went to the Supreme Court and asked them, can a province secede from from Canada and the Supreme Court said yes, but they must do these following steps in order to do so. And that is what the Callarity Act was built upon. So there is a method and a mechanism for it to happen without being called traitors. Uh it was set up and we have the right to do so now under under the constitution.
Now, we'll jump forward to the 2000s.
And in 2012, Bill C38, the Jobs, Growth, and Prosperity Act, came in, which gave Ottawa control over all of Alberta's projects. That means that you couldn't do anything from build a pipeline to a highway to uh a highrise in downtown Calgary without federal approval.
In 2016, the federal carbon pricing came in. Everybody knows what that that did to everybody.
In 2019, Bill C69, the No More Pipelines Act, and Bill C48, the tanker ban off the West Coast were brought into to effect.
Now, these four bills were supposed to be repealed under theouus signed by uh between Mark Carney and and Danielle Smith last fall.
But within seven days of them signing theou, parliament voted down thatou.
So that these are still all four in effect to this day.
We have been ignoring the bill C38, but the federal government keeps trying.
That's how they're stopping some of our pipelines in the north that they say are affecting caribou uh travel and things like that is because of bill C38.
Then we come to modern times and there's two bills currently in the the parliament that are designed to um basically control our lives. That's bill C8 and Bill C9.
Bill C8 is the internet censorship bill.
And what that does is it's they use the hate uh on the internet as as a reason.
However, all it takes is the minister's signature to uh totally wipe you off the internet.
You do not have if that if that passes through, you will you will have no repeal. You will have or no appeal. you will have no method in order to uh if they decide that you're off the internet, that doesn't mean that they just get rid of your ISP. That means that everything that you do online, you will not be able to do from banking to uh messaging on social media to anything, you will be your presence will be removed from the internet.
And even worse than bill C8 is Bill C9, the anti-hate speech bill.
Under that one, which is even farther along because it's at first reading in the Senate, it passed the House already and it is in first reading in the Senate. And what that one does is that one if this meetings like this if they declare decide that it's hate speech because there's no definition of hate speech it's if somebody complains they treat it as hate speech and they can come in and arrest me arrest any other speaker and they uh if found guilty uh I can have all my assets seized and go to jail just for speaking.
uh they also have there's it's specifically spelled out in there that if you are believe in in the Bible and you quote the Bible to somebody you can go to jail and have all your assets taken.
So there those two if if you got rid of the rest of our history, just those two bills alone are are in my opinion uh reasons that we have to seriously look at becoming independent.
So I would thank you very much. And now our next speakers are Macy and Matt Madison uh Holmes, sorry.
And uh uh it's good to see some some younger people up here speaking and uh I will invite them up at this time to to come on up.
>> Max told me to use the green mic.
Um okay. Hi. Um, I'm Macy Holmes and Madison and we're sisters and uh, thank you for inviting us to speak and thank you all for coming here. Um, I guess I'll do a little introduction since I'm assuming most of you might not know who we are. Um, so nothing special, just an average family that of seven. And and uh we got into basically learning how the government is trying to kill us during COVID. And that was I guess our wakeup story along with a lot of other people. And then that inspired us um to kind of invest into our family because our dad's really smart and he kept on reading books and listening to podcasts. And we thought that that was very inspirational because he wanted to update real time because we again we were like the average pleb where we didn't just watch our hockey games, didn't pay attention to the world, didn't pay attention to movements like this. And so then we started our podcast um at home with homes because we wanted to talk about what it is that we were learning as we scrub toilets for a living. Literally we're house cleaners.
So um so we talk about basically our everything that we value from geopolitics to culture to movements like this and we're trying to take what we can macro that we're learning and bring it here on the micro for us to practically understand what it is that we can do. So that's Yeah.
>> Yeah. I appreciate Shane what you were talking about because with the podcast and being young, we don't have a lot of experience and we're not lost on that subject. We meet a lot of young people and they think, "Oh, because we've listened to some podcasts, we've read some books, we know things." And they tell us not to trust people of the older generation. But being in a family of seven, all we know is how to talk to people. It doesn't matter the age. And our dad always gave us the respect that even though we're young and we're inexperienced, he said, "I'm going to treat you as if I want to be treated.
I'm going to listen to your argument, but beware. I have the right to defend mine my own." And so when we were invited here to speak, I was thinking, you know, maybe we could talk about what Shane did, some history that we've learned, um, some realworld things, you know, what it looks like with the bills that are coming down the line, not being able to afford a home as a young person.
But then I asked Chris and I thought, what do you you're inviting me and Macy here to speak? Nobody's. We're young, but there's lots of young people. Why do you want us to speak? and he said,"Well, I want you to talk about the importance of talking to one another." And I didn't know what to do with that initially, but it makes perfect sense because we grew up in a family of seven. We recently participated in the AGM for the UCP, though we're not we're not party line toers, but we like being involved. And the thing that we learned about doing the debate is that it's nothing new for us. Being in a family of seven, you could assume we're an echo chamber, but it is a wrestle match on a regular basis. We are fighting all the time on different negotiations, different ideas.
And that's the one thing that I think me and Macy want to emphasize today is that being involved in the independence movement, especially recently, there's a lot of infighting that's going on. Who's going to be the leader? Should we kick out Danielle? Should we not kick out Danielle? Everybody has different ideas about what they want Alberta to look like. And the thing that we can't get lost on being in a family of seven, just because somebody doesn't agree with how you should go about something, that doesn't mean you're not on the same page. And so with this whole movement, I don't care how many groups pop up. I prefer not one leader because then they can take that one out and then we get all divided. But when you have a family of seven or a family of 30 different Alberta groups, the thing is we all bring something different and everybody's pulling on the rope in their own way. And because you have that diversity, you also have a wider net. So now you can include people that maybe don't resonate with a Jeff Wrath, but they resonate with a Bird of Proud.
Maybe they don't resonate with Macy and Madison Holmes, but maybe they really resonate with Shane because he's got the history knowledge. And so when it comes to talking to one another, I really understand that. and being in a family of seven that's still together throughout COVID, throughout the trucker convoy, throughout all of those things, it's because we talk to one another even on the worst days. And some of those conversations, yes, they are arguing matches. Sometimes people storm out of the room, but then they come back when they're ready and then we still have the conversation. So that's one of my biggest takeaways, just looking at the Alberta movement, being in a family that can stick together. I think the Alberta movement, regardless of the leader, how many groups, we got to stick together because the people, this is what the movement is. It's the grassroots.
>> Um, I was going to say we need to I agree with that and we need to talk to each other because when we were having a lovely conversation with uh Vicki and Al in the car because they were gracious enough to drive us. So, thank you. And um that's like the hidden power behind the whole movement right there. um is when people step up like that and we really appreciate that and uh I was going to we were having a lovely conversation. I can't not talk about the context of what we were talking about in the car on our way up here. So uh we were just chitchatting about the idea of uh one singular leader whether or not we have that and I remember when the first controversies were coming up about the different faces whether they are the Jeff Wraths or not. I was like, the whole point is we are the movement and the people need to take the responsibility in their own hands regardless. So, it's people like Chris that decide to put on a town hall just for the sake of it. He's not doing it because Keith Wilson told him to. He's not doing it because Corine told him to.
Or Jeff, he's doing it because his own conviction told him to. So, when you decide to do stuff like that, that's how you build the movement. And you, any one of you can put on a town hall. It's funny, we were actually uh me and Maddie are part of our CA board um for the UCP Fish Creek and again not because we wanted to part tow the party line, but it was because we saw what Loheed was doing, Calgary Loheed, when they did the injection of truth event to talk about the vaccines and we were like I in my wildest dreams would have never thought that that topic could have been talked about under a UCP banner. I was like what? So, I thought that's so cool and the fact that they put that in their own hands to do that and you don't even need to be a part of a CA to find people to put together a town hall clearly um to talk about subjects that you feel are important to you. And when it comes to something as well that we were just chitchatting about on our way up here, it was the idea of play out your worst case scenario because I think that that's something that doesn't get talked about enough is that when I'm inshed in the UCP politics, what I hear a lot is people saying that we cannot let the NDP in and we cannot let them win. And my brain just kind of goes like, okay, but play out the worst case scenario. Okay, they get in, then what? To me, I'm like this networking that we're doing, the friends that we're making, have your guns loaded and know where it is that you stand with your people because when stuff does go down, you do have to prepare for the worst, right? And of course, we're going to try and like tread our way along so that way it doesn't happen. But letting your fears control you to the point where you feel like you'll have nothing to do if it happens, that's not a good sign. That's not preparing for something that's going to that might come, right? So, you have to prepare for that. get your friends.
That's the whole point of why we've been networking and Chris has been doing a fantastic job doing these town halls to keep furthering building the movement because as he said, we're trying to build a culture, right? And so that's purely and wholly our responsibility and our community and our network. And so it's good to have your guns ready and your friends close by. And then the other thing I was going to say um last little I guess addage and I'll get back to you was that um even for the ideas of like the independence movement. Okay. So some people are cashing all their chips onto this and I understand that's why we're here and we appreciate it and we want to do it and we're going to keep working towards it. But even some of the historical knowledge that was shared previously to us is that the Privy Council and Governor Generals and Lieutenant Governor Governor Generals and if you guys haven't heard of someone's work that we love um love very much admire is a individual named Matthew Eritt from Canadian Patriot Press. He didn't tell me to plug him.
This is my own conviction as a young person listening and trying to get my head around the situation that we're in.
and he shares some of the historical knowledge of what it is that this sort of Canadian deep state is and where it came from and what they are capable of.
And the hidden levers that they have within it to just basically snap their fingers and Thanos, whatever premier that we have in Alberta, the governor general can do that. And the new one that just got in is terrifying. And we need to be wary of stuff like that as well because the privy council already made an announcement that this Alberta thing, they're like, "It's not happening." like no m you put in your vote that's nice and all it's never going to happen right and but that's one of those things where even during the speech of Patrick Henry in what year was it 19 >> 1976 1776 sorry um he said that in his speech they had to go through all of the political measures to show how broken the system was. So even this vote can expose how broken our system is. And they will they had to physically fight for their independence. That's what Americans are were British subjects. We still are. We're the exact same as they are now. Just we're trying to fight it now. And we're going through our political process and I still encourage it and I still want to get with it. But at the end of the day, if again you play out your worst case scenario, do you have your guns ready? Do you have your friends close? Are you prepared for that? because they had to physically fight a thing. Okay, Canadians, that's not really in our history that too too much. Um, so that's something that just wrap your head around. I planted an idea. There you go. And then I think that's pretty much all I have to say on that. Yeah, we were we clean houses and we garden and while we do this, we listen to podcasts. Um, we were gardening recently and our client came out and he watches our podcast and he heard about the new bills that Sean pointed out and he said, "You guys own a podcast and you're in Canada and these bills are coming out." He's like, "You're screwed." We're like, "Okay, thank you." But it did point out the reality. He's paying attention. He's watching us and he's got our back. So even with this whole thing, there is nothing that's futile about it. And our podcast, half of the reason we do it is just so we can get regular plebs on that we know are listening and paying attention, but they're not getting their voice in. Even the youth, me and Macy have had one hell of a time trying to get youth that even agree with all of this that don't want to come out and say it.
That's a very difficult thing. And even people that were like, hey, if you you don't. So point is when people start to really get hurt because conversations is how we connect with one another in today's modern day world anyway. So, keep talking. We appreciate the invitation and hearing out two random chicks you've never met before. And thank you for coming out because you guys are the reason that this whole thing is up and moving. So, thank you very much.
And then Chris, get your beautiful butt up here.
Just Yes. Just your butt.
>> Yeah. Not the rest of you. Just your butt.
>> And come close us off.
Max, do you want them using green?
>> Yep.
>> Green.
>> Thanks. I was waiting for one more person.
>> Well, that was quite the compliment. I don't usually get compliments like that very often.
>> I got to go.
Okay. Well, thank you all very much for coming out. I didn't realize that there was a a sporting event and there was a 4 meeting tonight. Otherwise, maybe we would have rescheduled. But it turns out that we have a good crowd here anyway.
But I do want to point something out.
The these meetings are not necessarily about getting a thousand people in a room. The reason why we're doing this is because we want to get to every corner of Alberta.
We want to share our opinions uh regarding Alberta sovereignty with as many people as we can. And then we want to talk to you folks and hear what you have to say about it. We want to hear your concerns. We want to hear your objections. We want to hear, you know, if you if you disagree with us on something. This is this is really important to have these conversations.
And of course, we always uh we live stream these as well. So there's, you know, there's people that are watching at home and we're going to take questions from them as well.
So this whole concept about talking to each other, uh the the farther we get on this journey we're on, and it is a journey, uh the farther we get, the more apparent it becomes that we really have to start talking about things. Um in my day-to-day conversations, the people that are on the fence about Alberta sovereignty, they generally have the same concerns. It's concerns about specific policies that we, you know, that result in, you know, uh, something like a pension or, uh, or currency or something now and how that's going to look later. And myself included up until about, you know, four years ago, we really don't have a very good idea about how a lot of this stuff works, right? We haven't had to pay attention to it for the most part. I mean, yeah, we go out and vote and we kind of see stuff on the news, but at the end of the day, if people ask us about the or asked us about the intricacies of Confederation, Alberta's relationship to Canada, how our trade works, how our laws work, how the justice system works, how civics works, were kind of lost. We we we didn't really understand. We didn't really have the answers. And I think that's because we just didn't talk about these things. For most of my lifetime, it's been considered improper or impolite to talk about religion and politics. I've said this before, I'll say it again. Politics affects every part of your life from before you're born until after you die. That's a fact.
And religion affects the entire rest of your eternity. And we somehow got this idea that it's impolite or improper to talk about these things. So, we stop talking about politics around the dinner table or with our friends when we're out for dinner. And we end up in a situation where, you know, we're we're we're facing a very important choice in October, albeit it's not quite as uh critical as it was before, but it is still critical.
And we go into these choices not having the conversations and not really understanding what the outcome will be if we answer one way or the other.
And that is a a critical gap in democracy.
We live in a in a place where allegedly if we bring enough people with us for a cause, we can influence uh we can influence legislation, influence government and act for that cause. Now, as a Western Canadian, I don't really feel that very much at all actually because it's almost impossible for even the entirety of Western Canada to change the course of the nation.
But we still have some choices and so we have to start talking about these things.
even even the uh the highest levels of Canadian government right now are starting to talk about these things and they're really they're talking about it with the media because you know I I have yet to see any federal MP, politician, whatever come to Alberta and ask Albertans what their specific con concerns are and why they want sovereignty. I haven't seen any of that, but they're talking to the media.
Just today, I saw a clip of Prime Minister Carney. He was, you know, extending some veiled threats to Alberta, like, you know, Alberta, you know, don't don't try and use this as leverage because you might end up independent and it's going to be so bad for you. And I'm like, man, this guy's actually making the case for Alberta independence for me. If only I had an opportunity to go talk to some people about this and explain these things. So what Mark Carney is saying is, you know, like like with the Brexit campaign, everyone understand what happened with Brexit, right? The the UK withdrawing from the European Union partially, not totally. That was the problem. There was this uh you know, a part of the campaign was, hey, we're going to use this as leverage to get a better deal. And lo and behold, they actually they uh had a majority and they withdrew.
So Mark Carney is saying, Alberta, you know, don't stand up for yourselves.
Don't try and use any leverage. Don't try and gain any negotiating power because you might end up in a situation where you get what you're asking for.
And and someone like me, of course, I'm thinking, okay, well, that's absolutely freaking wonderful. You know, that's that's what we're looking for. We want sovereignty. We want to chart our own course. But instead of instead of talking about the opportunity of a of a society of a of a a province of of a of a people to pursue to pursue self-determination after, you know, working for 120 121 years within confederation as kind of, you know, and I I don't want I I say infantile before, but that's not really the white right word. It's like a, you know, just not not ready. Now we're here. We're ready. We're grown up. We're a we're a economic superpower. We are a tenacious, hardworking people. We can do these things. We should do these things.
And we have this huge opportunity in front of us. But nobody's talking about that. They're all talking about, well, what happens to my pension? Of course, my answer to that is, well, what happens to your pension now? If you don't like the way your pension's going, if you don't like that now we have a second uh pension payment, by the way, if you don't like the return you get, which if you average it over your lifetime, it's something like 2% effective or something like that. It barely covers inflation.
If you don't like it, what are you going to do about it as a Western Canadian?
Are we going to elect every MP in Alberta?
um uh uh every every MP we're going to elect conservatives. They're going to go to parliament.
They're going to advocate for change.
We're going to get change and it's going to, you know, adjust our pansion or fix the inequities that the west has with the east and Canada.
No.
So, and with well, you guys don't have enough votes. You can't change anything.
You're stuck with it. just deal with it.
Well, no. That's not how it's supposed to work in a democracy. It's not.
Self-determination is important. When you have common shared values, you have um you know a culture that you you want to preserve. And this could apply to Canada, although apparently Canada doesn't have c its own culture.
But these things are important. And if we can't if we can't pursue the future that we want for ourselves and instead it's a group of people 4,000 kilometers away making the decisions for us and then imposing those decisions on us.
We suffer the consequences and they never do. How is that fair? And how is that a conversation that shouldn't be had?
So we have a very important question coming up and now the question is going to be do you agree that we should pursue a path that will allow us to ask you if you agree that we should become an independent nation. It's it's convoluted. It's frustrating for sure.
Um I completely flipped my lid when I originally heard the question. Now I've calmed down. And I've thought it thought about it a little more and I I really do believe that we probably were given a quite the blessing with we didn't have before.
Nevertheless, the question's coming and in October every one of us because it's going to be the highest voter turnout in Alberta's history. Right. Correct. Yes.
Something that's important. Absolutely.
As we're standing there contemplating what this question means and and what it what it could possibly mean for the future, what the opportunity is within that question, we need to have we need to have the uh you know the knowledge of the conversations we've had with fellow Albertans that let us make the best decision going forward. That's what Let's Talk Alberta is about. And that's why once I'm done here, we're going to take a 10-minute break.
Everybody's gonna eat more pizza because we brought enough pizza for yeah, I don't know, 150 people and we don't have 150 people. So, you need more. We're going to have a little break, grab yourself a drink, and then uh we'll come back and we really want to hear what you folks have to say. We want to hear specifically, I want to hear what your objections are. What is it that you object to about Alberta being able to self-determine for the first time in history?
What is your objection to Albertans charting their own course forward? What is it that concerns you about the unknown portion of uh an Alberta outside of Confederation, the things that are important to you and then we're going to talk to you about those things and hopefully we'll uh you know we'll come to a a place where everybody at least understands the topics we're we're we're talking about.
So that's all I've got. Thank you very much. We'll come back in 10 minutes and we'll get to the Q&A. Was that a charade for a announcement at the back or you just cheering that I'm leaving? Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you very much.
What you want?
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Hey, hey, hey.
You love you.
Give me back.
Hey, back.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Hey, hey, hey.
Okay, we're we're about to get started.
I'm going to ask the speakers to come to the stage. But while while we're waiting on everybody else to get up here, I've got a couple favors to to ask of you.
First favor, uh there's a couple of people that I've asked to to pass the the bucket around.
If you're able to to put anything in that, that would be greatly appreciated.
This is completely funded by people like you and every little penny is is appreciated. If you're not able to, that's understandable, too.
Second favor, the algorithm on social media is playing havoc with us. So, we get people that are telling us that they don't get the posters for an event until like four or five days after the event has actually occurred.
So, if I could get you to go to let's talkalalberta.com, freedomcalendar.net, the whistletop Facebook page or Let's Talk Alberta's Facebook page, go through the posters, grab the the the upcoming events, and send them to to people that you uh know in those areas and ask them to share them with with people that they know. It's what I call the shampoo method. I don't know how many remembered the the Clarall commercials from the from the 70s and 80s. You tell two friends and we'll tell two friends and so on and so on. That it works really really good and that that's the way to get the messaging out.
I I think I'm going to have to do a song and dance here because the speakers aren't coming up to the front now. So, you don't want me to have to do a song and dance.
I'll get rid of everybody that's online for sure if I do that.
>> How many people here is the first time for them to an independence type event?
>> About a third.
That's pretty good. Thank you very much for coming, >> Brad. You need to start passing that around.
>> Okay, we can.
>> Yeah, >> but I have a question.
>> Oh, Chris has got a question that he's going to answer right away.
So on the on the live stream, somebody asked a question similar to um you know with this independence movement, who is going to be the leader? Who's going to resolve disputes? Who's going to make rules and policies and that type of thing? When we when we when we really got to work on this in 2021, one of the underlying truths was if politicians get involved in stuff, it usually fails.
And it was kind of understood that this movement towards Alberta self-determination, this movement towards a sovereign Alberta had to be done as a grassroots thing by the people together. That's it. And if it wasn't done like that, it wasn't going to succeed because politicians, they do politician things and they take paths and whatever to get what they want. But what we're looking for here, what we're what we're um it's not what we each individually want. I believe it's more like what we know that we need, right? We need to have a voice. We need to be able to influence uh the the laws that govern us and that type of thing.
So we and and I think we spend way too much time worrying about who is going to be the leader. Why does there have to be a leader for this? Why can't if if you're asking the question who's going to be the leader, why would you ask that instead of stepping up and being a leader in some capacity wherever you're at? That's how we win this, right? Each each person that believes in this needs to become leaders on their own and gather more people with them and and just create this movement, create the parade. And then those politicians, you know what they'll do? They'll get in front of it because they know that it's so big that they the the only way they can get what they want, which is position, power, and money, is to get in front of it.
So, um yeah, I I'll I'll say that one more time.
Instead of asking who is the leader, I think we need to instead ask how can I be a leader in my capacity and bring more people to the movement.
>> And that that was that was for Andy just in case you didn't know Andy that was your question.
>> If you have a if you have a question just put your hand up and Mr. Albertton will come to your your table.
I'll hold the mic because he gets a little sketchy if I drop it.
>> Just to the young young ladies there, Madison, how are you combating that where your generation doesn't want to talk? I'm getting the same gener even my generation. They're they're federalist.
They've loved Canada way back when.
They're sitting on that fence like how do you you guys had success?
How do you do in this to get them to talk or even acknowledge that something better could happen?
>> Do you want you talk about car?
>> Um, okay. So, I was in the car when we were on our way here.
We were talking about communication and something that um I think really resonated and what we've been finding even when you're having any difficult conversations is that and this is just from constant negotiation from even people in your own household that have different perspectives than you is that me and Maddie very much are long term is the game the best play. So build rapport because sometimes the best thing that you can do is just treat them like a human being. So if they feel like they can have a whole hour or twohour conversation where you just say nothing and are listening to them and affording them the courtesy of feeling like they are listened to, then that's something that yeah, they might be saying things that you don't agree with, but at the same time, they're trusting you. They're like, "Oh my gosh, this is someone that actually treats me like a person."
Right? And then maybe later down the line, best case scenario, they might be like, "What do you have to say about that?" Right? And then you're like, well, since you opened the door, I can walk in now and this is what I have to say about it. But I think another thing is when we're in conversations, what I found is don't necessarily have to go in going like, I need to talk to you about this.
Like, I need to have this conversation with you. Because I think when you stand where you want to stand, as in here's how you can better understand me, and that does not necessarily mean I need you to understand me right now. as in we might have 10 more conversations down the line. Oh, you didn't like the way I phrase that? How can I do it better?
What analogy do you think would work best for you? Oh, okay. Maybe they have a particular job and you keep their context in your mind. You're like, oh, so maybe they work as a hairdresser, for example, and then you're starting to talk about the workforce and you're starting to talk about dynamics of people and like envisioning what their interactions of life is like to better understand how to get through to them and then you give your own experience.
Now, on the specific topic of like federalists and like they're in favor and how do you get through on like the more specifics again the process of how I just kind of laid out of just let time play out. Let treat them like a person and then at the same time speak from where it is that you can honestly authentically just speak from your honest authentic self about how you feel about it. And then again marrying whether or not they understand right there and then is that's not going to do you any favors. You just have to come across it from a perspective of how you genuinely feel about it and how you want to get across. But you can add your two bits.
>> Yeah. My two cents. We've had a couple on and they're young. And it's it was funny because she actually went to the same school Macy and I did from grades seven to nine. We went to the Calgary Girls Charter School, all girls. And it was very, very liberal. It, you know, we I remember taking tests on how many planets have you killed based off of your daily habits, literally. So because of my bus ride to school every day, I killed three planets. Everybody just that's some of the stuff that the school taught. So when we when we came across this couple and this she was very very liberal in her thinking it but she got with a very conservative guy that listened to podcasts, just asked a couple questions and because of the mutual respect, she started coming around later. And we know countless examples that are like that. The reality is we are meeting people and maybe they agree, maybe they don't. It is always the in-person interaction. All the people that come on our podcast, they're outspoken, they're flamboyant, they're loud. Their ideology is their identity.
And I think that's the biggest thing that learning this like yes we're wearing these jerseys but Alberta >> we want to infiltrate hockey games but the reality is Alberta independence is not our identity. I'm Madison Holmes before I'm a separatist a sovereigntist whatever you want to label me as a UCP rising star. These are all labels that get put upon me by other people but I won't do it myself. So even the youth or the other person, I don't approach them as if they're an NDP person. We have people, friends that identify as communist. They're for Alberta independence. Labels don't work because people will put whatever label upon themselves thinking that it's their identity. But identity is something that gets negotiated through your whole life.
When you're 18, that's one identity. You become a parent, that's another identity. your p your kids leave the home. That's another identity. I've had to watch my parents reinvent themselves like four times each. So that's the one thing. We don't treat people as if they're walking ideologies. They're people who happen to have ideologies that needs to come first. That way you can always treat them as a person and then you deal with ideology later.
They're maybe they get angry and they cast it upon you. But if you're patient and they see you're treating them like a normal person, it comes around for me and Macy every time thus far. So that's my two not 10 cents.
>> Is that Did I answer your question?
>> Yeah.
>> So So he was Max, can you turn on my mic?
So, he was saying that uh the conversation's getting emotional, and that is true. What I've found in my experience, um it's much easier to talk to people about the facts, the the hard facts about Alberta, our position within Confederation, uh just about every opposition that somebody makes to a sovereign Alberta, I I can flip that around and turn that into a reason why we must become sovereign and self-determined. But the emotional ones, that's trickier because it's not based on a uh it's not based on an objective fact that you can deal with on its face.
It's it's based on uh potentially some sort of wall or bias that people have already put up in their in their mind to prevent them from even hearing what you're telling them. Right? So, that's a totally different thing and it's not something I'm very good at. But I do know that uh it's important to maintain the relationship you have with people and if the conversation's becoming really emotional and you know that you're not going to make any you can't reach them with logic, it's probably a good idea just to leave it alone. you know, plant the seeds and let the greatest salesperson for Alberta independence that Alberta has ever seen, his name is Mark Carney, let Mark do the work for us. Because as as we go further and further in this and and more things come out of the Liberal government that are completely misaligned with what Alberta values are, um those people that have you've had that conversation with, you planted some seeds, you've maintained the friendship because you back off when the emotional things start. Well, they're thinking about those things and they'll put two and two together on their own. But at the at the end of the day, you if you lose the relationship, um you you have no more opportunity to be there when they have questions about these things and and you you become uh um an opponent. And I the people that disagree with us are not opponents.
The the NDP are not our opponents.
They're not our enemies. These are people who are our allies. We just haven't done the work to bring them to our side yet. So, we got to remember that.
>> Can >> just I have a little quibble with that.
>> Yeah, a quibble. Um >> right. Right. You're going to set off my neuroticism, Chris. Um how many people here have like something goes on in their lives? It has literally nothing to do with the independence thing, but it comes out in something not related to the thing that made you emotional. So, it's like, okay, me and my sister had an argument and now suddenly I'm typing a bit more aggressively online. A youth comes at me or an adult and I'm a little bit less receptive. It has nothing to do with them. It has to do with her. Well, could do do with me and I'm blaming her. But the thing with people being emotional, sometimes a lot of the time, because we're human beings, sometimes it's not always to do with the independence thing. Sometimes it's something else. And that's come out and I've had people where they they got angry, they got emotional, they got passionate. I waited. I literally just waited. They had their whole rant and then they apologized and they went, "Sorry, I wasn't in a good headsp space." or so and so back home is doing this thing. Think of all the young people that can't afford a home right now. That's stressful. They can't have families, but they value families. I can't even imagine what it's like for young men. I can't cuz the the desire to have a family. They don't feel like they can get a woman with a solid brain because what society is doing to women, it's really tough right now. But that doesn't mean they're not they're recognizing problems and they don't always know what the solution is. But there's so many problems. So even though I get it, it's heated.
I mean, we're all we're all very capable of taking somebody's heat. I mean, if you're married, if you have a sibling, you talk to people, you can take it. I mean, I know I can. I'm in a family of seven. I take all the time. Just sometimes you got to allow people to have their tantrum moment and you might find something come out on the other side. I have something only because I was the recipient of the one getting really angry and she stayed calm and I was like, "Oh I feel like a shitty person because she was so calm and I was so angry and I was coming at her and she just stood her ground and she was like and then she she wasn't being like satirical though. I wasn't like, "Oh yeah, like keep bringing it at me like I'll take it." No, it was more like a I'm here with you. If this is how you want to act, okay, but I'm going to stay where I want to be. Because sometimes it's like bring them down to your energy. you don't have to go to theirs.
So, you just chill. You stay in your own energy. You take it. And because at the end of the day, you're doing this conversation out of love because genuinely care about this person. You genuinely care about what it is that both of you can come together to figure out. So, you just stay. And then honestly that hindsight might be 2020 for them later and they might just go like man like my dad, my mom, my grandma, my friend, they just stayed so calm and I was just so angry and that makes me feel so bad because it made me feel bad. But yeah, that's also just my little two cents on that one.
>> Max My question is my observations. I apologize. I was miss more people were being exposed to it. I came across people that were getting more frustrated by the question and not getting answers.
And so the conclusion I have come up with a >> Okay, Mike. So we're just going to read the question, okay, for the people watching. Okay, >> I'll just just let him finish, Max. It's we're almost done the question.
use that term. Uh the people that were really trying to target um those that have not committed either way and and it's been commented that Carney is is driving that to our group which is absolutely phenomenal and and great for him. But I am not going to ask anybody about independence anymore. I want to start talking to them about the bills that the Liberal government has changed or taking our sovereignty away from me as an individual and my country. And so I think we need to be you can talk about independence but I think we really need to be educating people about Canada and really what Canada is doing to us because that is I think that is going to persuade them on the question on the first question she added two if you don't understand that get with me but on the first question is do you want to stay in Canada they will go back to the conversation and the bills that you talk to them and they'll start thinking, "Oh, well, I I can't talk about this in my Bible. It's against the law." Or whatever bill that really disturbs them.
And I really think that is going to change the vote more so than talking about the independence because a lot of people that are undecided kind of have their back up already when you bring up independence.
Well, uh you missed my my whole speech is about the historic uh relationship between Ottawa and C and and and Alberta or uh what has become Alberta. Uh and I I started way back in the 1800s with what they did and all worked my way up to currently bill C8 and C9. And I talked about those two bills and yes, you are 100% right. We have to talk about those because those are what are affecting us and some of those bills that there's even from be from uh the 1930s and 40s are still affecting us to the to this day. So yes, you are 100% right that we have to talk about those bills that are coming forward and how they are affecting our day-to-day lives.
>> And here's the fun part. If we're going to talk about these things, you have to read the bills. You have to read it. You have to know it. You have to understand it. So when you have the conversations, you're coming from a place of uh of knowledge, right?
>> Listen to a podcast that's not >> or listen to a podcast. However, read it anyway because even though I I might read something and I have a different take on it than than someone else will go back to the primary source if you can and and really learn it.
>> Say that again.
>> If you don't understand the bill, and this is what I've been doing. I took over the chapter chapter chair in Taber.
knowing nothing about politics. I've sat down probably 100 to 150 hours going through AI and reminding it as I question it. I don't want your liberal answer from the the media and all of this stuff because that's where it gets its information. After you correct AI three or four times, then it brings you to the facts.
>> And if you do that, you can educate yourself on the bill in a term that you can understand it. So, I would highly recommend it. that don't believe the first two or three things it says and Wilmer will vouch that I have put a lot of information in this and everybody that receives the email says wow I did not know that so I would encourage you to study it you you read it you're not going to understand it but be cautious with AI because it is liberal but if you keep reminding it not be liberal give me the facts you will get the right information >> and that that's great to do and I agree with you, but read the original bill yourself and I would encourage everyone in here as I as I said even when I was speaking, go download a copy of the Alberta Act from the Government of Alberta's website and read it because it will amaze you on all the stuff that we were handicapped from from the beginning and then you can work your way up through to the current bills. But there are bills, like I said, like the Alberta Act that brought Alberta and Saskatchewan, the only two provinces, by the way, that were brought into Confederation by acts of legislation rather than by negotiation.
Uh, and under that, they they told us how we were going to operate, and that's spelled out in the Alberta Act. and we've got a lot of rights back that we didn't have under that. But it gives you a historical ba basis on where all these other laws are coming from. So I would encourage you to to to use AI, but definitely read the bills.
>> Of uh clarification, Maddie said listen to a podcast of someone reading it if you can't have the time to listen to read it. It was listen then to someone.
>> I I wasn't listening.
So, quickly on on that note, um there's a lot of people in Alberta that are upset with a lot of federal legislation.
And when you start to ask them, okay, well, what are we going to do about it?
How are we going to fix this? One of the things people are likely to say is, "Oh, we can't because we don't have enough voice." And then you're like, "Okay, let's have a conversation." What does it what does it tell you that the only reason Alberta was able to even get the prime minister to say that we might consider changing some of these things or looking at them in the future provided you do all these other things first that you don't want to do maybe we'll do this to get him to say that we had to actually make Alberta sovereignty mainstream that's a pretty big deal Right.
>> Am I Am I allowed to say something?
>> Do I get a choice?
>> I I I got a little quibble.
Um I just wanted to say we ran into a gal the other day that is very eager and on board, but she said, "Vicki, I don't know how to answer these questions." and I don't feel comfortable talking about it. And I told her and and I want to tell every one of you, you don't have to feel comfortable. You don't have to know your Pardon me. Know where to point them to. Find some references, websites, podcasts, whatever to direct them to. We don't have to know everything, but we do have to open our mouths.
Okay. I'm sorry. I was testing it. Um I was going to say also sometimes um it's very admirable when you're having a conversation to say that you don't know something cuz even my parents what kind of I think helped I had I was trying to hindsight 2020 why I didn't go through the rebellious phase of I need to you know question everything that the older um person in front of me is saying and I think that I came on an aha moment which was um they were gracious enough to say that they don't know but they want to find out together and that really resonated as a kid growing up with them because they were like we'll just figure it out as we go. And so that's also something when you're having those conversations with those people and you feel uncomfortable then you can just go like well let's both figure it out together because um it was me and Maddie did a roundt um with some UCP youth kids and one of them was is not an independence pusher at all and he's federalist and we were just like well we read this document the value of freedom PDF on the A website and we mailed it to him and we said let's go over it together and get your thoughts. And that's basically all you can do is just put forward what it is that you think you have, what it is that you might not have. And if you're both like, "Oh, I'm going to listen to this, like let's listen to the podcast together, and then we'll like exchange notes," then that's that's a good segue to show that you're you're both growing together in your in your knowledge. So, >> I just want to quibble. Okay.
>> I didn't realize I was a pusher.
I think I got a question that everyone is asking right now online and maybe even in the room. What is that on Chris's shirt?
I think I've been targeted.
Oh, so this is a uh it's a CBS or CBC button, pardon me.
>> Yes.
>> Why am I wearing a CBC button? Is it because I'm a Fed? Is it because I'm controlled opposition?
>> Yes.
>> No, it's because there's a couple of uh ladies from the CBC here right now asking questions and you know there's a they've got a a board at the back and the question is uh what is it about Alberta independents or what is it about separatism that other Albertans are getting wrong? Right. And the first thing >> what is the biggest thing the rest of Alberta gets wrong about separatism?
>> There it is. Thanks. So, so my first comment was, well, the wording of that we're we're not separatists. We're not trying to remove ourselves like separate from something. We're trying to self-determine, right? We're not going anywhere. We're literally connected by dirt all the way around Alberta. Um, and and I and I think it's important to to to get these words right. Right. Do we Is this a Is it a Are we trying to leave everybody? No. We're just trying to make our own choices and in making our own choices we can also make choices to work together with those those around us. So that's why I'm wearing this today just because I want people to know that uh you know as as much issue as many people take with uh with the legacy state funded media. There are some people who actually want to ask questions and hear from Albertans as to why you know why we're pursuing this path.
Something that I wanted to add also just to pay off of Chris is um pay I always have questions like of other people's questions just lingering a bit and I feel like as we keep talking it just adds more value and I was thinking that also when it comes to the sentiments around um the federalism and like the Canadian identity and what it is that they feel they have towards it and not wanting to leave Canada because what about the other Canadians and all of that. A part of me is also like state your intention and it might not be so opposite from what they're saying as in no one's intention is they want to the rest of Canada to suffer or be ruined or be wrecked. It's more like we are trying to get our feet off the ground so that way we're in a better position to help because right now we're not helping ourselves. And then you can use just real life examples for um that individual in their own existence, which is like if you're basically capped at the knees and someone's trying to get you to help them out, sometimes you're not always in a position in that moment to do it. Maybe you're doing something else. Maybe you're focused on something else. And so you say, "Give me a minute and then I'll come back to you." Right?
And so that just happens in ordinary everyday interactions of life where sometimes you can't always solve it right there and then because you are doing another thing. And so it's the same thing with Alberta. It's like we can't solve the rest of Canada the way we are right now. We need to do a thing first. Give me a minute and then I'll come back to you. But yeah, and also last thing is uh since we've been talking about CBC, I need to make a point of clarification. In my last uh in our speech, I am not inciting violence for the trolls online. just saying uh it's more so just the idea of be have it on your brain as a point of preparedness obviously, but if you check out me and Maddie's channel, you'll see that we've had like Operation Gladadio experts on to talk about some of like the more military aspects of what it is that oligarchs and secret intelligence agencies do. And we know based on just us doing our homework and you can too from listening to these people that are way smarter than us is the fact that they purposefully infiltrate movements to get them violent. So if anything, if if there's any context that I have on the internet there for you to have because you might not always have my context being with me in person is uh that definitely that's not something that I advocate for and I'm like preserve human life as much as possible because I'm definitely not for the depopulation agenda. I don't even I don't care if your ideology doesn't agree with me. Um it's more so just have that preparedness for yourself and like I was saying um earlier it's the community essentially that we are building and the friends that we make that is our strongest asset fundamentally when it comes to the reality of when things go bad and so that's that's what I'm advocating for because if anything what I have learned from these apparition glaudio things we were on a interview with Max FreedomCal done it thank you so much for live streaming Um he had us on and someone was asking about the immigrants that are coming in. They're like, "Well, what about them causing all these like crimes and the violence and I'm like understand that it might not be this um sort of is Islam that's the problem because of their religious beliefs and they don't value and therefore they're causing crime." I'm like, if we look at historical context and knowledge again, people that are smarter on me who have talked about this, I'm referenced Matthew Erit earlier. Um, they could either be paid actors that people that come in because during even the time of the crusades, we call them sin skin suits where it's like people that pretend to be something that's virtuous, pretend to be this thing that you agree with and they're not that. And then they're a paid actor meant to stir the because civil wars are not necessarily just something that uh I guess is it's not at all meant for the people. People get killed in those. It's meant for someone far beyond that that orchestrated that. And so even in Alberta, we'll have to be very cautious of that as well. It's a who wants and benefits from me believing that it is this certain group. So yeah, >> here we go.
>> So I'm Wilmer here. Um I absolutely appreciate that you guys are up there talking about this stuff and I appreciate younger girls up there talking to the younger people. So, I think that's so important moving forward for for what we're doing here. I think that's a huge compliment to be given to you guys. Um, and the the lack of education has been out there during the petition. I really appreciate that uh that's happening. I got to say that. Um, one thing that uh I've learned through some of Ivan's emails that he's talking about um and I don't know if you know Chris and you're you're in business. I don't I don't know your buddy up there.
I don't know him. But anyway, either way, um the the whole banking system for Alberta, um Ivan has brought forward some very important information about supporting credit uh Alberta credit unions and and you know the Alberta bank so to speak instead of versus the other big fours out there, right? um to make the Alberta economy stronger and not so much support all that revenue going the banking revenue going to Ottawa because the other four are all probably situated in Ottawa or Ontario wherever. Um just curious on if you've thought about that Chris on on on that whole banking side of things.
That's uh coincidental that you bring that up because I've actually been talking about that a little bit. Um mostly because of what I've learned from my friend Ben Trudeau. So Ben discusses the things that Quebec has done exactly what you just mentioned to take back every lever of control and every piece of sovereignty they can that they are due and they do it there. Right. One of the examples is uh uh he he uses the example of our our royalty payments. So every Friday the big oil companies they deposit the royalty in a CIBC bank account in Toronto and it's like it's in the billions I think it's a huge number what they deposit that money over the weekend earns that bank like two or three million or something like that and that money goes it stays in Ontario.
Why are we doing that? Like what he explains is the Minister of Energy could literally write a letter and say close this bank account, open a bank account here in Alberta, Bo Valley at ATB, whatever, and and make the deposits there and that money stays in Alberta.
There are a number of things like that that we could do in Alberta and we could do it in weeks, not months and not years, and we could do it in weeks. Um, and I really think it's important that we, you know, we start to talk about those things because we're talking about the the broader implications of of self-determination and sovereignty. Even the premier says that she wants a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada. If you want a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada, the path that you take is very similar to the path I take. I want to pursue sovereignty while taking control of all of those things which we can right off the bat. If she believes in sovereignty, she also wants to take control of those things. So, her and I are aligned on that path. After that, we're going in a little bit of a different direction, but yeah, absolutely that that can be done. Um, it's not rocket science and it absolutely should be done.
I sent that email to one oil company and he said immediately I sent that email to one oil company guy in Taber and he said immediately his reply was I'm changing over today. That's how easy that was because like Ivan did a great job laying it out by with AI and it's very well done. Um and it it was that simple to understand and it's just dollars and cents like your calculator doesn't lie, right?
>> Yeah. Well, I don't know if that's the same thing as what I'm I'm discussing, but uh yeah, there there could be things that are just just that simple. They are it's no debate needed. It's just a do or don't. And if if the premier is really serious about Alberta sovereignty, then we should do those things.
>> Can I take some online questions?
>> One one more thing. Speak still speaking on the banking. One thing that Quebec had has done is they've set up a credit union uh dja uh creditane.
>> Say it again. Pronunciate.
>> Djarden.
>> Djarden.
>> Yes. And 95% of Quebecers bank there.
>> Something like that.
>> Yeah. 90 90 to 95% of all Quebecers bank with them. that money stays in Quebec.
If something happens with the Canadian dollar and it the bottom falls out of it, they have the assets in their bank that they don't care. We should be doing the same thing here.
We should 100% be doing the same thing here. Whether you're for independence or not for independence, that's something that we should be doing to protect the province is we should have our assets in our province >> blah blah blah blah blah.
>> So Macy and I were asked very, you know, humbly by the Alberta Women's Independence Network. That's Kathy Flat and Angela Tbec. They asked us to host an M economics panel and so we had on Fergus Hodson and Brett Oland who helps run owns the Boow Valley Credit Union.
Me and Macy and our family, we do banks with uh the Boow Valley Credit Union.
And what you just brought up, Sean, is a very big idea that I don't hear a lot of people talking about because that to me sounds like a national bank, provincial at this moment, but it would be a national bank for Alberta. And it's a very good question to be thinking about because some people they look at Canada and think, "Oh, we're communist and therefore we have to go every step of the way against communism, which means capitalism free market." And a national bank isn't technically because a national bank has been run by both fascists in the past and communists.
That's why banking it's a tool and it depends on the mind that's using it. But a national bank is a fantastic idea in order to put Alberta's money in Alberta.
And people I would recommend because even I as me and Macy did that interview. People are very nervous about ideas like a national bank because they're really trying to avoid any idea of communism and they associate a national bank because they think it's centralized that we shouldn't do it because it's oh it's all in one place meanwhile. So this is the question that I think me and Macy were trying to get Brett and Fergus to think about, but they wanted to avoid any centralization.
But avoiding all centralization financially gives you paristroka in Chile and in Gorbachev, what happened there? In order to fix communism in the Soviet Union and in Chile, what they did is they tried to encourage all capitalistlike uh policies. And so they were like each individual gets to do investment. But that radically decimated the economy immediately, but it happened to benefit some of the upper people at the top who had all of the banks because that's when you also get corporations that can take over. Then you get the private public partnerships.
So either way, when you look at banking and economics, neither work. You got to find somewhere in the middle. And that makes people very uncomfortable when they're trying to avoid like a communist Canada because a national bank sounds centralized to them. But I would recommend looking into e um Hamiltonian economics. That's who did it and that was that's the American economy of American system of political economy that was coined by Henry C.
Kerry. But when you look at the way those implemented, they that got them out of poverty in times of war as well.
And even though we're not in a physical war, there is economic warfare that's going on in Alberta. You can even look at some of the policies and the moneyaundering that the government of Alberta does. You know, they'll say it's for this policy, but then you dig into it and it's actually not going to where they say it was. And that happens all the time. So, good question. And even me and Macy, everybody should look into that because money is something that we operate with on a daily basis. And it's very important that we negotiate the nuance and not repeat things that have already been done in order to avoid a greater evil.
Um my last two bits on that would be when I was I was reading an article that um Matthew did and again he's just a proponent that we love to follow because he he puts his hat in literally everything but it was one on the idea of Keynesian economics versus von Hayek and as I was reading it I it's pretty easy to kind of go like how Keynesian economics is not necessarily the best way to go. most people would describe as more of a liberal type of economic system anyway. So some people are in this particular movement. It would take no problem for them to probably go like Keen is stupid and here's why. But it was Hayek that actually is I guess more designated as the proponent of right um leaning policies on economic scales. And I was reading the article and the thing with just pure free market um forces is that it kind of takes away from the idea of protective tariffs for example because if you have free market then you have free trade. And what that looks like is the cheap labor that we have coming in here today and people profit off of no longer having to rely on your domestic right infrastructure and manufacturing but now they just have basically the cheap labor that comes in here and without protective measures which again would require some form of governmental structure. So it's it's one of those things where we have to ask ourselves the question under what mode of attention is this um can we make this a little bit better because there's there is such a thing as revenue tariffs and those are not a good thing and then there's protective tariffs which can be a good thing and that's what the American system did during their time of trying to because during the time of the uh war and independence like America was pretty much broke and they were not doing so hot but in a very short amount of time they were able to raise themselves up quite exponentially. And so if you check out um Matthew's work, we did our um podcast or I guess live stream with those economics panels um that's where we started to research some of the system of American political economy and we started to go well why can't we do this? So yeah, >> we have a commenter online wondering how come the CWB was bought up by national bank. Anybody want to comment on that?
The National Bank I used to have my student know what them >> the national bank which is based in Quebec and the national bank by the way was city and uh they grew up this is largest federal chartered bank in Quebec is their Jordan's biggest competitor aside from bank of Montreal which is not in Montreal but the in Toronto and they purchase the Canadian Western Bank for peanuts Basically, just just a thought.
>> Go ahead. U during your speech, the you the homeless girls uh talked about not being worried about different factions within our organization, right? That worries me because they're going to they're not going to come at us with multiple factions. Those guys have got an organization and they're ready to go. I don't think we're ready to go. That's my personal take.
>> So the question would be, are we ready to go? Yeah.
>> I I what I'm getting at is is when you're fractured, and we are fractured, um you you think we're pulling together, and we are all going to try individually to pull together, but I still think you need an umbrella.
>> See, I 100% disagree with you. Actually, I probably a thousand% disagree with you.
>> A lot.
>> Yeah, exactly. That's how much I disagree. The reason that I disagree with you, >> I am I'm not upset about it. The reason that I disagree with you is that because of the way they're coming at us, if you centralize under one umbrella and they take down that centralized umbrella, the whole thing collapses. Whereas the way we are going at it now, we're not working against each other. uh we're all working towards the same goal and we're actually several of us are involved in several of the the the the groups but with them not being all under one umbrella. They can't get rid of us and we can't be taken down. They can take down one one branch of it. It it we're acting like a hydra.
You cut off one head, another one it takes its place. And by doing it that way, we we can't it's whack-a-ole uh to to the ultimate scale and and we can't be taken down. But we're all working together. We don't hate each other. We don't we we're all working to the same end goal. But the I actually think we need twice or three times what we've already got to to make sure that we get to that goal in the end.
>> Yeah. And Keith Wilson actually suggested, you know, why why don't we have a group of farmers who just come together and they start farmers for independence or a group of grandmas, you know, grandmas for independence, whatever. This group for independence and it doesn't have to be a big group, but uh there's a there's there's a couple benefits to that. The the hydra type idea, but I think a hydra is kind of a bad thing, but I I get it. the hydra is >> there. There's there's there's that component of it, but you know, once once we get into an actual campaign phase, well, now there's um there's rules on fundraising, how much money you can spend in advertising. If you have a hundred groups and they all have that ability to do those things, well, you've got a hundred times the ability to get the message out specifically to to to groups that are more uh aligned with what you're talking about, right? So, there's a there's a very very big opportunity there and uh and and I don't think I don't think it's detrimental to do so. I I think what you're referring to is more some of the um how would how would I say it? The more unpleasant aspects of of uh >> personalities >> personalities, right?
>> And I get it. So recently I I've talked about some things that have happened and uh I sat on this for quite a while and while I I don't want people to be not motivated or pursue this amazing opportunity we have at the same time if I see something that I believe is wrong and going to derail or take us off track I have to speak up. if I don't do it, um, I'm not going to sleep at night.
And I I do believe there's a way to overcome certain issues without being too disruptive, but sometimes there's a little bit of disruption needed. And you got to get it over with. Like Jordan Peterson says, um, telling the truth isn't always comfortable, but it's necessary. And once you do and you get it out in the open, you can deal with it and move on instead of having this nagging festering thing going on slowing everything down. You just get it over with, move on, and uh you know, that's all we can do.
You know, he he brought up farmers for for uh independence. That actually be would be an awesome group to start because uh there are things going on from Ottawa as you were saying, bills and the like coming down. Bill C22 that is that just came through is is is under the guise of animal protection, but it gives even more ungodly rights to the to the SPCA.
they they they have three times the the the police powers that the police have to to come onto your property. That's something that that farmers should be screaming about. Uh just the the fertilization, the fertilizer acts that they brought in, all of this stuff. And you know, that's something that the people in in the city really don't understand. And so that wouldn't be much point in discussing it. But Farmers for Freedoms would be one heck of a group to get started because there is a lot to discuss in agriculture that Ottawa is doing. The CFIA is taking over small farms by the thousands right now just because they're going in and taking giving them all these different regulations on how to raise and and control their animals. And if you don't follow those those bylaws, you are going to lose your livestock. and they will come in and they will do it for you.
We've seen that happen a number of times, >> Dale. It's for your safety.
>> Oh, yes.
>> This isn't just a a Canada or folks. Um, a lot of these policies that we're seeing that we disagree with, they're actually they're not even written in Canada. They're written somewhere go and they have these big weekends and talk about how they're going to save the world and then they bring these policies back to Canada and and impose them. It's not stuff that we asked for because I I saw that the the Dutch farmers were protesting some things their government was doing and I caught wind that there had been like 3,000 farms that have been wiped off the face of the Netherlands because the government was implementing these policies that was just forcing people right off their farms. And then they were literally wilding the area, turning it back to nature for biodiversity to save the planet.
You know, as I went and I had had a talk with some of these farmers, my friend Jasper, he's from Holland. I stayed with him when I was over there and we traveled around and we talked to a whole bunch of farmers that were dealing with these things. And at that time, I said, "You know what, Jasper? Um, I've noticed that Europe is usually like two, three, maybe four years ahead of Canada. we see things going on there and we're like, "Oh man, that's so crazy. Thank goodness we're not in Europe." And then lo and behold, a couple years later, we're facing the same policies. So these policies that were implemented in Europe a few years ago and have caused disastrous consequences and now here we are doing it. So you know, you don't even need a crystal ball to see what's coming. You can just look around the world, specifically to Europe, and you can decide, hey, do I want to get involved now while I have the opportunity to do it, or am I going to wait until we're like, you know, for instance, until we're like England, where if you post something offensive or or pray in public, you're going to get get arrested and fined.
>> Yeah. I mean, it's it's our choice. We we do it now while we can or we just instead we we go watch a hockey game or or go on vacation or whatever and and let things get so much worse to the point where maybe we can't do anything about it in the future.
>> Ostrich farm.
>> Yeah, ostrich farm is is a prime example. We let policy get to the point where something as disgusting as what happened at that ostrich farm could happen, you know. And what was the demand? Test the animals. If they're sick, we'll we'll kill them. Nope. We're gonna find you if you do that. That That's where we're at. And we could have fixed this years ago, but we were all too collectively busy either working to feed our families or enjoying our our our leisure time and not being involved in civics like we should. So now I think we should do it now.
>> Um I just have my two bits. Um sorry. um for the I guess overarching question of the groups and whether or not we have a central leader and all that and even speaking about the different personalities. I think that's why I was kind of highlighting the going back to the pl painting out your worst case scenario because how I was more so describing it is when there's someone that has like let's say OCD for example and they have something that they're really afraid of doorork knobs. This is an actual case. Um, and they just are deathly afraid because of the germs, for example, right? Some people say exposure therapy. So, just approach the door.
Don't even necessarily put your hand on the door handle yet, right? But worst case scenario, sometimes when you play it out, it's like, I'm afraid that if I leave my stove on, it's going to burn my entire house down. Okay, so your house gets burnt down. Then what? Life still goes on. You still have to make decisions. You still have to. You still need to figure things out. maybe do you have family that you'll have to live with and now you have to restrategize some things, you have to think it through at the end if the worst case scenario gets played out. And so for some people that are like, "Oh, we should take Danielle out. We should keep Danielle in." Um, we already know that a politician is not going to be the thing that saves us. But when it comes to laying out the scenario, okay, so some people decide that it's their conviction to kick Danielle out because of their own reasons, research, whatever. So now they're they're campaigning to go towards doing that thing. And then that gives us some trepidation because we're like we might be eating ourselves alive, giving, you know, our NDP opponents, you know, more leverage because now we're kicking out a leader that was probably maybe doing us a favor. We don't we're not entirely sure because we're not in the room when and in her head making the decisions. We're interpreting it. That's the best we can do. And so they decide that they put their energy towards doing that. Now, do they have a person that they have in mind that they're going to put in after her? Okay, do they have a timeline of how long that's going to take to probably try and get another person in? Okay, they need to play out all that timeline. Okay, we might eat ourselves alive in that process. Okay, now play the scenario where we feel like our can got kicked a little bit down. We get to answer a question on a question.
Yay. And even though we wanted to, we already answered it by signing the petition and we just wanted our vote, right? So now we're playing out this scenario and for all we know court cases, injunctions, how far it gets kicked down the line, things still keep getting implemented. Right now our Alberta military just got increased because of Arctic defense. Was it really because of Arctic defense, >> right? So then that's got to be a bit of the question of some things are coming in the back door regardless of Danielle being in here or not. So that's also the stuff that we need to be paying attention to is what is on the what's on the ground happening that's coming out of Ottawa that regardless of who our premier is or where people feel convicted to spend their energy something's happening and we need to be aware of that. And then if worst case sometimes my dad he'll just be sitting in our CA meeting and he'll just be like oh my gosh like let the NDP in already because sometimes it's looking at that going like well now people do you see it? Do you finally see it now? And we already knew it was coming this whole time, right? And that's why we're trying to do our preventative warfare and we're trying to make sure that we take the proper steps to prevent it. But that's I'm just trying to highlight do what it is that you're convicted to do. Have more conversations. If there's conversations happening between the personalities and not just at each other best that's probably the best thing to be happening in my opinion. And then if it doesn't span out the way that we hope, are we thinking about that?
Yeah, >> tick. Tick.
>> Tick.
>> That's what's happening. Tick.
>> Tick.
>> Tick.
>> GL syndrome.
>> Two more questions.
>> Um, I have some online questions though.
Um, question number one. Well, thank you very much for tuning in.
Uh question number one is what's your strategy to get into the cities specifically because um the uh information warfare that's pretty much complete or a lot of people in the rural areas are mostly in favor for independence but it seems that the cities is another next target so we need to get to get in. What is your strategy or thoughts or strategies that you can on top of your head to them?
>> We are we are going into the cities but we're not treating them as a city. We are treating them as the individual communities that they are. So we have meetings coming up in Calgary and Edmonton, but we're we're doing it in Rundle Park. We're doing it in in uh uh Forest Lawn. We're doing it in the communities within them. And we're working we're working on building right now building up uh volunteers in each one of those communities so that we can go in there and we may not necessarily have uh a town hall per se in those communities. We may have a a wiener roast in the park and have a chat. I mean, one of the best meetings that we had was a wina roast in Rundle Park in in Edmonton. We and we didn't have everybody speaking at the front and like the we all just sat around and we answered the questions from the people in there and that worked very well and that is what we are planning on doing and we are and the advertising we're we're doing to targeting the the city with advertising as well.
uh we are the cities are our main focus for us and uh in fact starting September 1st we're not doing any more small town uh ones we're concentrating strictly on the city two reasons one we needed to make sure that the cities are are hit but also face it it's harvest season what's the point in going out into the countryside during harvest season so it's the the perfect time to do it but Even between now and then we are working on the cities.
>> And also another question as well. What is going to be the next time you're going to go to you're going to Calgary?
>> Next week is next week. We're in No, the week after.
>> Drum.
>> Drum. Next week. It's the week after that. We're Yeah, we're in Calgary. The week after next.
>> Okay. Calgary really needs you.
>> We're working on it.
>> Daddy, get off the cord. Calgary really needs you, Vicki.
>> Category for the win, guys.
>> Okay. Uh, yeah, a super chat from Rage Against Machine. Man, I I love that.
>> Rage Against a Machine. Hello. So he says, "Freedom has never been preserved by comfort nor secured by silence. It has been won in struggle, sacrifice, and defended by men who understood that the price of surrender is often paid by their children.
>> That's uh some wise words. Yeah, there's uh I I've heard often that, you know, people fought in in in world wars and they they fought and they died for for your freedoms so that you didn't have to fight. And I I I heard that for years and now I'm like, wait a minute, that's not why they did that. They fought for freedom so that we would have the opportunity to keep it, right? So, what Rage Against the Machine said is very uh that's very accurate.
>> June 16th.
>> Oh, June 16th. We're in Calgary. Okay, one more question and then I think we got to wrap wrap it up. Unless it's a really pressing question.
>> I'm good here.
Now there's a mute guys.
>> Okay, I'm when I sort of
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