Shaun Newman Podcast - #1076 - Premier Danielle Smith

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Premier Danielle Smith serves as Alberta's 19th Premier since October 2022, leading the United Conservative Party (UCP). We discuss the October 19th referendum. Cornerstone Forum 26’https://shaunnewmanpodcast.substack.com/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Expat Moneyhttps://expatmoney.com/snpGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

This is Brett Weinstein. This is Tom Lomago. This is Bruce Party. This is Alex Krenner. Hey, this is Brad Wall. This is Dr. Pierre Corey. Hi, this is Frank Peretti. This is Daniel Smith.

This is James Lindsay. This is Vance Crow and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Thursday. How's everybody doing today? Well, I am sitting in Calgary, Alberta recording this. Obviously, you know why, because you can see who's on the title of today's episode. I'm sitting at Silver Gold,

Bull headquarters. And, well, when it comes to precious metals, that's who I'm going to point you towards. Of course, they're Alberta built, and they ship gold, North America wide. You can find them at silvergoldbull.ca, silvergoldbill.com. Silvergoldbill.com. Down in the show notes, you can text or email Graham for any details you have around, precious metals, buying, selling, storing, all those good things. You can also visit them at silvergoldbill.com, silvercoldbill.com, I'm repeating myself.

And if I pull up, you know, it's always so weird. to record on this thing because normally I have certain things at my hands and fingertips in the studio. Regardless, uh, the current price of silver, the old silver wagon, $95.94 Canadian for those paying attention. Guardian plumbing and he and these guys been keeping homes, farms and businesses running smoothly since 2010. And to all the farmers out there, this one's for you. Guardians efficient grain dryers and guardian power stations aren't just available here. They're available all across Canada.

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including safety equipment, welding, supplies, fasteners, and janitorial items. They operate as a Napa auto parts retailer, and you can get a hold of Shane Stafford and his group at 780842-3433. And after you're done listening to Daniel Smith and you think, I don't know, you're going to think one of two things. She's got the master plan or we're in for some wild times here over the next couple of years. Well, if you're tired of high taxes, unstable governments and watching your wealth of road, you can meet McKell Thorup, the world's most sought-after expat consultant and founder of expat money. He was a guest on the first Cornerstone Forum when it was back in Lloyd Minster. And down on the show in the moments, you have expatmoney.com backslash SMP. And when you click on that link, what you're going to see is eight countries to escape World War III,

how to build a sovereign plan B before borders, close, and markets panic. So down on the show notes, expatmoney.com backslash SNP. You're going to hear a little bit on, I think, in the interview today, Daniel and I bring up the fact that the year-long trip, the S&P road trip that's going to go across Canada is coming up. I think we're 17 days away from it now, folks. Oh, man. Anyways, if you're wanting to pay attention to that, podcast is going to come out every day, as it always has. But you can also hop on Substack.

It's free to subscribe to. You can also support the show by becoming a paid member and follow along with some added footage there as well. Now, if you're listening or watching on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Rumble, X Facebook substack, make sure to subscribe make sure to leave a review if you enjoy the show share it with a friend give us a rating all those things help all right let's get on that tale of the tape today's guest is alberta's 19th premier i'm talking about premier daniel smith so buckle up here we go well welcome to the shan duma podcast although this is um a new one for me because normally i have you on screen i have you in studio i know this feels very formal yeah it does

I made a special trip for you today. I thought so. I was expecting to see you online. I was down in my office. What I wanted for you is to be the first podcast as I left Alberta. You were talking a little about that before you pressed record and we're going to miss you. Well, I'm not going anywhere. I mean, the podcast is still going.

Yeah, but you've been doing those annual events as well. Annual events still happening. May 15th. Yes. Okay, I see. Yes. Does your audience knows where you're going? We announced it at the cornerstone after you left.

That's where I announced it too. Anyways, I have a silver coin for you. I get, my God. Okay, we're getting to a point where we have to reveal to the ethics commissioner how much you want me. We're getting close. We're getting close. I might have to donate this to a good cause. I'll tell you what, you donate it to a good cause.

It's a one ounce silver coin from silver gold bolt, which is sitting here in Calgary. Yeah. Right. And they got their start in Rocky Mountain House. So an Alberta business. Yes. Are you feeling bullish on bullion? Oh, if you tune into the.

podcast. I love watching the silver wagon. It's a lot of fun. Well, I mean, it went from when I went back, listen to our first conversation in March of 2021. And I gave, or we were talking about a bunch of, sorry, not March 21. Our first time I gave you that and it was $40. It was like 38 actually when I went and checked after. And, you know, like sitting here today, it's like 98. Oh my gosh. And earlier this year, it was 150. So now you've got to, I've got a, so that's 20, 23. So you've given me three, and so now current market value would be over $250. It's pushed me over the limit. So then donate it.

I'll have to. Okay, well, there you go. Now I'm starting to get in the realm of where I give you a coin and you're like, I actually don't think I can accept that anymore. Yeah, exactly. So that tells you something about where silver's gone. Okay. Now, jokes aside, because people are going to be like, Sean, what are you doing?

You only got a little bit of time. You know, I go back and listen to our early conversations. You know we love about those? What? They were like an hour and a half. And you used to tell me, you used to be like, I know. I don't know if I can go an hour and a half. I'm like, Danielle, you've talked on radio forever.

I know your premiere now and that changes, but 25 minutes is tough to get into. I know it's funny because traditional media, it's especially television media, it's, come on, you got to get it down to eight seconds. And maybe there's a 30-second or one-minute story. And then you've got radio, which is, like, it's a lot. Like it's more of a conversation. Yes. And then podcasts. My goodness, I think that it's a whole different way of doing a broadcast

because one conversation, one person, for a long period of time, you really get to know them. Yes, you do. I mean, you've had me on an up. So a cumulative hours, I think, gets us over that mark. Well, fair. Okay, well, then let's start because I watched your address, okay, talking about announcing that there was going to be a question on the referendum. And I sat there, I listened to it, and I'm sure anyone who listened to me afterwards was like,

what kind of question is that? I'm like, am I voting yes? Am I voting no? I don't even, it's a full question. And I want to make sure I get this right. Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process required in the Canadian constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada? Correct? Correct.

So when the ballots are put out, right, people are, at the referendum. Is there like multiple boxes on this? Two boxes. Okay. It's really, so maybe I should tell you, so part of the reason why we felt that we needed to put this question forward is we have laws in Alberta for citizen initiated petitions and referenda. And the first petition by the Forever Canada folks got 400,000 signatures. The second position, a petition got 300,000 signatures by State Free Alberta. So we felt to live up to the spirit of the law, we had to put a question on the ballot. The committee voted to put Thomas Lukassik's question on the ballot but remember what that question was do you want to remain in Canada yes or

no so what does no mean when somebody's voting no you need to have a I know what no means but that's just it I mean we felt like in putting that forward we had to define what no meant the court told us that we couldn't have a binding referendum without going through a legal process but we thought we needed to get an indication so it is essentially the Forever Canada Do you want to remain in Canada? Option one, remain. Option two, start the process to have a legal vote to leave. So when I come back, because my plan is to come back for October 19th to vote in the referendum, there is essentially a box I want to stay or a box we should start and you check either one.

Either one. It's just one of two options. Because you know, someone said to me, well, what if I just want to send a message? And I thought, well, you know, you could put that on the ballot and that would be the one that would probably win. Well, I think... But if you're going to have this discussion and this province has had this discussion in various stages going up and down for as long as I've been following politics, there's always been a separatist movement. It got as high as 42% last April. I want to know if people are serious about wanting to go down that pathway. And you can only do that if you ask a clear question. Remain. And then we work on the relationship, and we work on addressing the grievances. And I hope people will give me the other, yeah, a strong affirmation to the other nine

questions because I think those are the things that we need to address for to address the pressure points or start the process to have a binding a binding referendum you didn't think about removing the other nine questions and just having it that question alone no because I still need to I at the moment if the vote were held today it looks like the remain side would win I think I saw the latest ballot poll headed at 67% but I don't think that that's what people want I don't think they want to remain and just suck it up. They don't want to remain and just keep on having Ottawa treat us the way they've been treating us. They don't want to remain and not push the envelope on the things for autonomy.

So I think that you can vote remain and you can say yes and I want to fix immigration and yes, I want to address the unelected Senate and yes, I want to address the judiciary and yes, I want to make sure that the federal government stays out of our provincial jurisdiction on spending and yes, I want to make sure that Alberta's laws take priority when there's a conflict. Like in the case of the gun grab, we have policing and administration of justice. I don't want to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens who purchase them legally. That should be the law of the land in Alberta. So that's what I'm looking for, is give me a mandate on the nine questions that we want so that we can go start fixing some of those things.

If you're an Albertan, who is proud Canadian, wants to stay in Canada, but is upset, on that question, since it's non-binding, shouldn't you vote to start the process to give you the best, biggest ace up the sleeve, biggest guns to go to the table. That's probably a poor analogy. But to go sit at the bargaining table as you're trying to get pipelines and all these things pushed through and you're having to deal with federal government, provincial governments everywhere, if you're a proud Canadian, but you're frustrated, right? You're sitting here in Alberta and you're like, how can I empower Daniel Smith to go out

and change things? it gives the window of opportunity for the Canadian government to change things before you actually come to a binding referendum. That's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it, had someone give me some marriage advice early on in my marriage. They said, don't ever threaten divorce. Because as soon as you say the D word, you've started yourself down that pathway. That would be like going to court and filing the divorce papers and then saying, okay, I'm willing to talk about it. If we're willing to talk about it and work it out, let's do that first.

That's what I would say, is that I think that that is a very serious step to take unless you're genuinely interested. And so that's what I'm trying to gauge. Is this people who are genuinely interested in becoming a separate country? Or are they wanting leverage or are they wanting to send a message? Or are they just staunchly remain? I think I've heard from commentators. I've heard from people who are leading the movement. I want to hear from every day Albertans on this.

And we'll get a pretty good gauge of that on October the 19th. I think a lot of Albertans have just had enough of not being listened to from the other side of the country. I can see why they would feel that way. But look at the things that we have done. So we've built a number of protections in our law. Number one, we passed the sovereignty within the United Canada Act, which basically said, we're just not going to implement laws in this province that violate our constitutional rights. And we've had to invoke it a couple of times.

We passed the Provincial Priorities Act. We said, Ottawa, don't come here and tell the city of Calgary and the city of Edmonton or any other municipality that they've got to put in blanket rezoning as a condition for funding. That's why we put that in is we don't want the feds coming in and doing a workaround on our various agencies and municipalities pushing an agenda that doesn't work in Alberta. We passed the international treaties law. But they can't go abroad and sign agreements and have it automatically binding in Alberta.

We got that idea from Quebec. Did you ever think your biggest ally right now or at least people who aren't demonizing Alberta for even asking this question would be Quebec? It's, I've always known that Quebec and Alberta share the same aspiration in the relationship with Ottawa, that they want Ottawa to just stick to its knitting. It's got a lot of, it has a lot of obligations. They should be figuring out how they're going to meet our 5% NATO target. They should be figuring out how to build infrastructure, roads, rail, pipeline, airports,

to be able to get our products to market. They should be working on ways to, to, expand trade into other jurisdictions and solve the problem of our relationship with their principal trading partner with the United States. They should manage our monetary policy properly so that we don't end up with a massive inflation crisis and causing everybody to have to go buy silver. Like there's lots of things that the federal government can focus on doing. They should stop trying to do the provincial job. And that is, I think, the same position that Quebec has always taken is you stay in your business. Let us do our business.

and then we would have a happier federation. So maybe that doesn't surprise me. We obviously share different ideas about what we would do if our jurisdiction was genuinely respected by the federal government, but that's how the country's supposed to work. Quebecers should be Quebecers. Albertans should be Albertans. You have commissioned the University of Calgary School of Public Policy

to a study on leaving. 1.5 million? Yeah. When are you, when is that, When should it be done? By mid-August, I think. I think people need a couple of months to be able to see the results, digest it, and offer their opinion on it. We've already seen a couple of different studies that have come out.

They're pretty dramatically different in what they propose. And so we hope that with the various perspectives that are on this panel, that they'll represent the broad spectrum. So I've gone through this before, but Martha Hall-Finley, she ran for the liberal leadership all those years ago. that's where she comes from. Trevor Toome was on our Alberta next panel, but I don't know what his politics are because he just focuses on numbers. Adam Legg represents some of the biggest businesses in Alberta, but was also on the Alberta next panel. Ted Morton, Firewall Guy, but also former finance minister in Alberta. We've got, as well, Janice McKinnon, who was an NDP minister in Saskatchewan. And we've got Alex Porbe, who's doing a lot of work with us through

Cinovus on getting to the finish line, not only this pipeline, but the Pathways Project. So that's a pretty broad spectrum of people. And so once the study comes out and they get concurrence, I think that would demonstrate that having looked at all of the different factors, they think it's a pretty good report. If they disagree, then they'll be able to do, well, you know, I agreed with all of this, but I think they missed this part. And then people will be able to make their own judgment. But somebody needed to do that work, because we have never stood up a federal government from scratch before. I don't know if there's an example in the world where a jurisdiction become separate

who hadn't already had a national level of government. And so trying to set up all of those different functions, I think we need to have a pretty good understanding of what it would take. I don't think is a bad idea to inform Albertans. So the goal of the project is to say, hey, if we were to leave, this is what it would look like. I assume there's going to be some economics in there as well as like, this is how much going to cost.

Here's the revenues. Here's the cost. I assume you've taken a ton of flack over the $400 billion comment. But this is something to try and justify or at least point to this is what it looks like it would cost if we were to go this way. Yeah, I mean, Lenny Kaplan came out. He used to be a finance deputy minister, I believe, in the Alberta government. He calculated the startup cost at $300 billion and the ongoing cost at $67 billion. I think that that's, you know, useful information. I've seen that there's different numbers that have been put out by the APP group.

And so people will have a look at that and they'll say, does that have the credibility? And all of these things have to be in the mix. I know you're big on balance, right? Not too far, one way or the other. Even though you have come out saying, like, I'm going to vote to stay in Canada. When you bring out a policy, or not a policy, sorry, independent economic analysis like this, is wondering, do you plan to bring out an economic analysis of staying in Canada? Like, this is what it's going to cost us to leave.

Now, on the flip side, if you wanted to balance it the other way, this is what it's going to cost us to stay. Well, I think we know that number. I mean, we've been doing those numbers every year where we look at what do we pay into Confederation versus what do our people get back in benefits. I think what's been different about that is, and different about this analysis, is we're now embarking on a new era where we have to increase our defense spending. That doesn't factor into the current environment. And we also have a government that's been running pretty massive deficits. So they haven't had enough money from any of their taxpayers to be able to make a balanced budget. That has to be factored into it because I think Albertans have an ethic of wanting to run a balanced budget.

So that's one part of it. But I think people know that because we have higher workforce participation rate, more jobs, more businesses, we've got the energy sector, which is not only a powerful generator for us, It's also a powerful generator of corporate and personal income taxes for the federal government. So I think people know that over the past, call it 30 years, Alberta has contributed more to Confederation than we've gotten back in that various spending. So the question would be is that something that we would, if we can get Canada's help in getting our product to market, which allows us to build another $50 billion.

billion dollars worth the pipeline access, which allows us to generate more dollars. Is that worth it? And I think it's worth it. But, you know, I'm going to make my case on that. I think it's really important because I think a lot of problems get solved when you've got corporations able to expand, invest, make jobs so that people can have a good income to pay for their families. I think a lot of problems get solved when you have a booming economy. The question is, is that going to be enough to assuage Alberton's? And I, I, I, I guess I'll find out about that. But I think that analysis has been done.

And now we have to see whether or not the balance works as a standalone country, having all of those powers that we have never done before, paid for by Alberta taxpayers alone. I think it'd be a, you know, I know the 1.5 million sounds like a bunch of money, but how much is the referendum roughly going to cost? I've seen lots of different numbers come out of how much it's going to cost the taxpayers to go through. I don't know that elections, Alberta, has given us their updated budget ask for the referendum. We don't budget in advance of these kinds of events.

They have to figure out how many questions are, which they asked us to do by June 1st. So we've got the 10 questions. That'll be on the ballot. And I think they've said they need to hire 60,000 people because they're going to count each ballot separately. So everybody will get a sort of stack of ballots, and then they have to count them separately. so I think that'll take a little bit of time. I think they have 48 hours to get them all counted. We've given them instruction.

We want them to count the citizen-initiated one first. And so they, well, I don't want to conjecture what it will be, but they'll be the ones who will come back. I guess I always come back. I'm like, you know, like, well, we kind of know what the cost of staying here are. But like, as this liberal government continues to do what it's been doing. Yeah. And, you know, I just recently had on,

And that's probably about a month ago now, Danielle, retired Lieutenant Colonel David Redmond. Oh, yeah. Right? He did the emergency preparedness for Alberta and a whole bunch of other lovely things. And you know, I think he's a pretty smart guy. He's for staying in Canada, by the way. Yeah. He doesn't surprise me, yeah.

And as I sat there talking to him, though, I said, do you see it getting better? And he's like, well, as long as the liberal government's in, no. I'll go, okay. So where does it end? Like, when do we see the East start to change its tomb? Because we can see which way the West has been voting in our federal elections. And he went red lines. And I go, okay, well, we can sit here and go, well, we can show the cost of leaving.

And we all know, like, chances are when they go into it, it's not going to be $1 billion. Everybody's going to go, this is a smashing deal. It's going to be a choice. This is an expensive choice. But the other expense is staying in a country that is going towards now, it's just one man but a very smart man who's done a lot of work for this province in saying breadlines before we get change well there's a cost to that too you know i i guess i would look at it a bit differently because conservatives do such a good job of with courage and conviction pushing ideas

forward and often we take flack for it from the mainstream media and the woke leftists but then when we win we never acknowledge that we've won and i can tell you we are winning we have We've won on the issue of the nine bad laws. We've got eight of them addressed in the MOU. We've won because 75% of Canadians want to work with us to build pipelines. We've won because we had a parliamentary committee say, we don't think we should extend made to people who just have mental illness is the sole reason why they want to seek it.

We've won because we had the health minister say, you know what, maybe the safe supply and safe consumption sites aren't such a good idea. We need to move in a different direction. We've won because we've got the entire country. We even had the IOC saying that women and girls in sport need to be protected. We've won because even in the Americans, in America, the various pediatric associations have said that kids shouldn't be making decisions about gender transition until they're adults.

These are all issues that we here pushed, advanced, and we're winning on. And so I think we just have to recognize that, yeah, you can have a government at the federal level that doesn't necessarily agree with you. But when you move hearts and minds in Canada, they have to move to where the hearts and minds in Canada are. And we have won over our fellow Canadian citizens. So then is it just pace? Me and you have talked about this law. It's the pace of which government moves.

People want it tomorrow in the next 12 hours. And sometimes, you know, Shane Getson, right? I've been on the podcast many a time. Talked about economic corridors. That started in 2021. And I sit in 2026 and I go, where are the eggs? economic corridors. Isn't that the pace of Canada? We just, there is a, there is a pace, there's no doubt about it. It takes what I'm learning, and there's some good managers books,

management books on this, that it takes about three years to make a foundational change. And part of it is that if you start off with something that is brand new and different, the first reaction is, no, don't make me move. That's actually a very conservative position. Keep things exactly as they are. And then you just have to keep working at it and working at it, and developing people who are on your side to be able to advance it. But we have seen that, that it takes a number of years. And so at this most recent premiers meeting that we had, we issued the report on economic corridors,

and it maps them all out. And we've got, doesn't matter whether you're a Saskatchewan party or Yukon or whether you're NDP from British Columbia or Manitoba, we all agreed we'd like to see economic corners, Port of Prince Rupert, Vancouver, all the way to Churchill and on up to Grace Bay. And so that did start with Shane Getson, and he did some wonderful work on that. And here we are, three and a half years later, with a statement that we want the federal government to help us build those out. Well, five and a half years later.

Because I started that and think about that, 2021, five years later. Yeah, and like I worry about, like, it's one thing that everybody wants to get it done. It's another thing to get it into reality. You know, like the pipeline, right, of getting it built to the West Coast. It was a Cenova CEO, John McKenzie, recently said that under the current framework, neither the Pathways Project nor the West Coast Pipeline really make any sense without major capital investment. He called the pipeline unfinanceable by the private sector due to the regulatory environment described the industrial carbon taxes insidious.

Wow. I would say that what we have looked at is, there's a few things. The industrial carbon price is an Alberta price. It's been an Alberta price since 2007. I know that people think that it's been foisted upon us, but it actually is an Alberta policy that came in place in 2007. Now, is it higher than I would like it to be? Yes, but the federal government and the Supreme Court agree

that they have the ability to set a floor price. But we've always had an industrial carbon price. And it doesn't apply to everyone. It's not the same thing as when you go and fill up your gas and you see 17 cents on your CHIT, or when you look at your home heating bill and you see it costs $4 a gigajouil, that one's gone.

This is just the hundred biggest companies in Alberta that pay a carbon tax on the increment above a benchmark. So it's actually a very narrow tax designed to get them to invest in emissions reduction technology in his work. We've seen a massive increase in the amount of production. When I came in, we were at 3.7 million barrels a day. We're at 5 million barrels today.

And yet we've seen a flattening of the amount of emissions. And that's because of the technologies that they're using. So I think that there are things that we can do to make sure that we are the best cost environment to invest in. But when I look at, I'll tell you what our stats shown, and I've seen others who have done the analysis too, it's about 80 cents to a dollar 10 per barrel that the industrial price that we agreed to would add. But getting another million barrel a day pipeline to the coast would reduce the difference between WTI and Western Canada's lack by two to $3. So cost us a buck to be able to win three bucks. I don't know. By my math, that's pretty

good. So do you believe you can change the hearts and minds of some of the biggest companies in Alberta and Cinovus and those to build? Because what he's saying, and others have said, is under the current economics of Canada, things like that aren't going to be built by the private sector. Well, I would say we have to get the federal and provincial government in agreement on the route and the yes because no one is going to invest in a pipeline if they start off and then 10 years later they don't have an answer so that's why the federal and provincial government have to agree on that that's one thing about the regulatory and you feel you're close there you sure do yeah I mean we even even with all I brought this up when we were at cornerstone yeah the going through

BC and all the land claims yeah all the fee simple title and just the fact we're starting to see some people call it a veto because that's probably the simple way to put it, but like First Nations having veto on projects. You know, LNG has been led by First Nations saying yes. LNG really began, they had to pull their government kicking and screaming along on that one. It was actually the First Nations who were willing to host these LNG facilities that created the impetus for the rest of the development. I've spoken with some of those nations, and they're feeling the economic boom and benefit

from having done so. So we've got a little bit of convincing to do, but I look at the nations as our partners in this. I think that we have started off by saying we want the nations to have a significant ownership stake in this line. So every single one of them are going to be able to benefit from the dividend income that is generated from that line. And it's a different conversation when you lead with that. And then when it comes to the West Coast pipeline, I can tell you that I think that the federal government may have started off thinking, wouldn't just be easier to go to the United States. And you know, it might. We've got Enbridge who's announced they're expanding their line, 400,000 barrels.

We've got South Bridge and, or South Bow and Bridger, that have announced a 450,000 barrel line that could be a million. And there's other projects in the U.S. we could. But, you know what, we also had a federal government in the U.S. cancel a pipeline permit. And we have Gritchin Whitmer in Michigan wanting to cancel line five going through her state as well. So you don't always, you can't always just rely. on a single trading partner for all of your benefit.

We've got to get more pipeline. They're giving me the signal. So any final thoughts for, I'm going to say Albertans here, you know, in a contentious time. I said this multiple times on the podcast and I wanted to say it to you. I really appreciate because, and I may even set it at Cornerstone. I can't remember now the timelines, but really appreciated when you, all the primers were calling people traders and really deeming. to stand up and be like, we're not going to do that to our fellow citizens.

I think that was important. And certainly when we met, there was a time where the Premier back then wouldn't do anything like that. And I think people can do simple addition. But the floor is yours for speaking to the audience. I understand skepticism. I really do. I would never have thought that we would have come this far with the liberal government in the past 18 months as we have.

But the world has changed a lot from where it was three years ago. I think wokeism is dead and dying. It's certainly, we're doing everything we can to stamp it out here. I think cancel culture. The young people are not going down that direction. They don't support it. We've been fighting that, and I think we're winning on that. But I think on the bigger issue of energy,

every nation of the world, whether it was because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or whether it's because of the disruption in the state of Hormuz, they now understand that we need to have a secure, reliable supply of energy if we're going to have increased living standards and quality of life and jobs. And that's a revelation they're becoming to in Europe. It's a revelation that they came to in the United States with the change that they made in their government. And it's a revelation that finally the liberals are coming to here in Canada as well. So I think that there was a moment in time where I understand why everybody thought it was pretty bleak and gloomy. But I think now we have the momentum.

And I want to keep on advancing it. Doesn't mean we're going to stop fighting on the things that matter to us. I'm just not going to fight on everything. We're going to try to find the areas of agreement and push them along. And then find the areas of disagreement. And we're going to fight like hack to make sure that Albertans are represented and Albertan's voices are heard. How happy are you that Stephen Cabot is?

Yay! You know, I've said it. I went to Quebec and I said, I think he was a politician that was the most destructive of national unity than I've ever seen. And I wanted to take that time. that message to Quebec, because I want them to understand that Goebo's not gone. In fact, he said, if another prime minister comes back that will allow me to implement my agenda, I might come back in.

And I had to let Quebec know that that's not all. I said, imagine if I came here as an Alberta politician and said, it is my mission to stop you from developing hydroelectric power or any more aluminum plans. That's what Stephen Gebow did to us. And it was sort of a, ah, now I get it. I think we just have to respect each other. There is not a project that is in the country that I have stood up and said, I don't want that to go ahead.

And I think that other premiers should take the same view, that we should be supporting each other. Whatever it is that our people want us to develop, let's do it an environmentally responsible way, but let's root for each other. Let's get each other's products to market. Let's make sure that every province continues to develop its economy so that they can wean themselves off their reliance on equalization. Then we will have a much happier federation. Thanks for doing this.

You bet. Thanks, Sean. Enjoy your trip. I look forward to seeing you in person next time. Yeah. Yeah.