Shaun Newman Podcast - #599 - Michael Wagner

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

He has his PhD in Political science and is the author of several books including A Christian Citizenship Guide, No Other Option and Alberta Separatism. We discuss the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the can of worms it opened up.  SNP Presents returns April 27th Tickets Below:https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone/ Let me know what you think. Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastE-transfer here: [e-mail] Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Phone [phone] – general sales line, ask for Grahame and be sure to let us know you’re an SNP listener.

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Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. How's everybody's week starting? I got some things to talk about SMP presents. But before we get there, how about this? With government's deficits running... Holy man. Welcome to Monday, Sean.

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Okay. SMP presents coming to Lloyd, the Cornerstone Forum. We got some cool things in the work. It works. I just confirmed Mikhail Thorup is going to be coming to Lloyd Minster. So that is going to round out the speakers. You're going to have, sorry, and I don't know why I'm drawing a blank on this. You have Chris Sims, Mikkel Thorpe, Tom Longo,

Alex Craneer, you know, while I'm doing this, I'm like, I'm like, why didn't I have this pulled up, Sean? You know, it would have been just easy if I would have just, oh, here it is. Why don't you just pull up what you're doing, Sean, and then it could be easy. I'm talking around it, trying to find it. Here it is. Okay, and I don't know why I'm spacing on the speakers, but I'm going to just dun dun dunn, dunn, filibuster, filibuster, filibuster, filibuster. Okay, Tom Longo, Alex Craneer, Chris Sims, Chuck Prodnick, Curtis Stone, now Mikkel Thorup,

and coming virtually is going to be Martin Armstrong. That's April 27th. Tickets are on stale. At the time of me recording this, I just want to make sure. McHale Thorup table, sold. Sean Newman table, sold. Alex Traynor table, sold.

Tom Luongo, sold. That leaves Curtis Stone, Chris Sims, and Chuck Prodnick, if you're wanting to sit with anyone of those lovely people, those are available. There's only 220 tickets being sold roughly for this. So we're well under 200 now. we're closing in on only 150 left.

So if that is something that you're like, ooh, I better get on it. And the other thing I should point out, I know a lot of you wait until I just released the audio on the podcast. None of this audio, I'm sad to say, is going to be coming out on the podcast. This has been an endeavor to pull this one off. The plan is to, whether it's a month after,

a couple weeks after, we'll see how we do. We're going to professionally record it, have the professional audio, and then it'll be behind a paywall, whether that's on substack or somewhere else, We've got to work through some of those details, but I thought I better point that out because I had somebody, oh, how long it's telecasts released on the podcast? It won't be coming out on the podcast. This one is going to be a full day event.

It starts at 9 a.m. finished by supper. It's got lunch. So it is a full day event. All these different speakers coming from all across the world. I was thinking about it the other day. Panama, Morocco, Florida. And then Kelona, as far away as Kelowna here in Canada, Emmington, close to Manhattan.

And once again, Martin Armstrong, I don't know where he'll be. you when we do the recording. But regardless, it's going to be time, really, really excited about it. So if that's tickling your fancy, make sure you hop on, grab tickets. Would love to see you there in Lloyd Minster. And then I'm working on one other thing for Sunday morning. Once we've confirmed that, I'm going to add that in because I want to make sure the public and all of you find people know that the second part that is coming Sunday morning.

And I'm going to have more details, no worries, here in the coming week. or weeks as I think it'll be before then. But certainly I've got two of the speakers lined up with looking and finishing off a third. And we're going to have some fun Sunday morning. So there's enough of a teaser for you when it comes to SMP Presents. Okay, enough of the filibustering. I think I've been doing a little bit more than that. Six minutes in.

How about we get on to that tale of the tape? He has his Ph.D. in Political Science. He's an author of several books, including a Christian citizenship guide. I'm talking about Michael Wagner. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Michael Wagner.

So first off, sir, thanks for hopping on. Well, thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Now, as we've got going or started, I was just saying your name kept popping up. And, you know, it's coming from like not strange places because I love all my audience, but it's not coming from the same place, if you would. It's not like three friends all text me at the same time and said, hey, would you have Michael Wagner on?

I was like, sure. It came from like places all over Canada. I guess that's how I put it, to the point where I'm like, well, this is getting to be a touch interesting. So, Michael, who is Michael? And we'll start there. Well, like I'm best known actually in recent years because I've been speaking on the Independence Circuit. Sure. My main areas of research have been Alberta independence and Christianity and politics in Canada.

And so I'd written a history of the Alberta separatist movement in 2009 and didn't get any attention at that time. But to make a long story short, it became relevant after. Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015. So during 2022, the Alberta Prosperity Project and some other groups were very interested in hearing about the history of the Alberta independence movement. And by that time, I'd written another book advocating Alberta independence. So that's kind of where my name started to spread around a bit because I was going to some of these events in speaking. And so as a result of that, I was invited on to some podcasts and things like that. But so mostly I'm known as a speaker and writer in the Alberta independence field.

But I've over the years, I've also written on Christianity and politics in Canada. That's my other their area of interest. And so I have two or three books in that area, but they haven't become popular or anything like that. So I'm not really known for that, but I do have that kind of background. So just to add to my background a bit, I do have a PhD in political science for the University of Alberta. Like when I was in graduate school, my area of expertise actually was education policy. So I'm a big proponent of parental rights and education and educational choice. My wife and I, we've home educated our children. We have 11 children. 11 children. Yes, we have 11 children. Yeah. Oh, okay.

So we still have a few of the younger ones at home. We're homeschooling. That's an area that's very important to us. And like I'm basically for my work, my main job is working for a publishing company doing book layout and indexing. And I also work for homeschooling organization a bit. And I do some freelance writing, especially for the Western Standard. Maybe I have a bit of a profile maybe as a columnist for the Western Standard.

So that's kind of in a nutshell. My background as it's relevant for this particular discussion. Where are you originally from? Well, like I was born in Manitoba, but we moved to Edmonton when I was four years old, and then we moved to Calgary when I was 10. So most of my growing up was in Calgary. We've been at Edmonton now for almost 30 years again. So I've kind of grown up partly in Calgary and partly in Edmonton.

So I'm sort of from both cities. I cheer for the flames. And a little bit for the Moyers, too. That's it. Yeah. Friends off, folks. Friends off here. Hey?

I tell you what, the Oilers making some moves here at the deadline. Yeah. You know, it's funny, now that you mention this, you know, like your two main areas of expertise, I've certainly had people mention you. You know, I talk about these different people bringing your name up. And now that you say it, a couple of them want to talk about independence and a couple of them want to talk about Christianity and politics in the history of it. And the reason I reached out is because, you know, I'm going to pull it up. And you pointed out, the second one is more, it's building off your work, but it's the Christian citizenship. A Christian citizenship guide.

I was trying to read that off the screen backwards. That wasn't working for me, folks. But that's kind of where I wanted to start. And if we get into the independent stuff, I'm not opposed to talk about that either. And as I'll preface this with the audience, if we don't get to it, we can always have them back on again. But, you know, the history side of this really piques my interest

because, you know, I've had several different guests on that kind of allude to a couple different things. They kind of talk about it, but it hasn't been there, maybe their area of expertise, let's say. And I think what I get out of reading it and just having you talk briefly about yourself is this is an spot of expertise for you. So I wouldn't mind, you know, just giving it to me. What has went on up to this point or I'll let you take that wherever you want? Yeah, well, I'll start out with some background and then hopefully you'll direct me a bit with some

questions as we go on so I don't talk forever. But one of the fundamental things to understand is that every political system is based on a particular philosophy or worldview. So there's no such thing as a political system based on neutrality that has no values or anything like that. So every country's political system is based on some kind of perspective. And Canada's was historically, you know, until recent decades, based on Christianity. And it could only be Christianity because Canada was essentially founded by Britain, well, Britain and France, both of which were officially Christian countries at the time that Canada was founded. In fact, Britain technically is still officially Christian.

I mean, King Charles is the head of the Anglican Church. And their whole system is based on having an official church as part of their governmental system. So that doesn't play out much in reality now. But that's the way their country has been historically. And when Canada was founded, you know, Britain was an officially Christian country still is. So a lot of that Christian architecture, whatever, was brought into Canada's political system. In fact, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and PEI, they all had official, they had the Church of England as their officially established church in the early years as they were colonies.

So this Christian foundation from Britain was brought in as the foundation also of Canada's political system. So that was kind of the background philosophy or worldview of Canada's political system right from the very beginning. And it, you know, it carried on for several decades after the time the country was founded. And of course, things started to change a lot in the 1960s, not only in Canada, but also in the Western world. So the kind of changes I'm talking about, some of them are specific to Canada, but as a general idea, You know, all of the Western world was changing, you know, United States, Britain, Australia, all these countries were having all of these countries, people were starting to turn away from the church and turn away from God, you know, especially starting in the 1960s.

So there's similar cultural changes in all these countries, and then there, but there's certain particular details that are different. So Canada, you know, has been changing a lot from its mostly Christian background from the 1960s going forward. And one of the things I like to focus on as an instrument for helping to change, you know, to turbocharge that change was the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was, of course, originally Pierre Trudeau's idea. He first proposed it in 1968 when he was the Minister of Justice. And the government of Canada actually published his proposal as a book, you know, the Canadian Charter of Human Rights. I have that somewhere I didn't bring it here. So he spent much of his time as Prime Minister trying to get convinced people to, you know, for Canada.

Well, the provinces all wanted changes in the Constitution. Of course, Canada's Constitution originally was the British North America Act, which is simply a piece of British legislation. And so for generations, Canadians had wanted to change that. They wanted a maiden Canada constitution. So Pierre Chodeau was part of that. He wanted to also have a made in Canada constitution. And when the Constitution was to be repatriated to Canada, he also wanted to add to it his Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But that was very controversial because it would create a fundamental change in Canada's political system.

But to make a long story short, before I go on too long, you know, that change was adopted finally in 1982. We adopted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was made to be part of Canada's Constitution. And from that time forward, there have been several Supreme Court decisions and other court decisions that have turned Canada away from its original Christian Foundation. One of the first major decisions under the charter was the Big M Drugmark decision, which overturned the Lord's Day Act. Now, the Lord's Day Act had been adopted in 1906 by the Canadian House of Commons to institute the Christian Lord's Day in Canada. So that, you know, there were certain activities, business activities and sporting activities that could not take place on the Lord's Day as a way of recognizing that Canada was a Christian country and, you know, and recognizing the Lord's Day. So that was the law in Canada. It was challenged at the Supreme Court level in the 1960s saying it violated, you know, freedom of religion.

But the Supreme Court in 1960s said no. Canada has always had some kind of legislation protecting the Lord's Day. And so the Lord's Day Act is not unconstitutional in Canada at all. Now, when it was challenged after the charter was adopted, it was struck down on the basis of the charter that the charter, the new freedom of religion concept in the charter, which brought in a new concept of freedom of religion in Canada generally. So it led to the striking down of the Lord's Day Act

because the Lord's Day Act was a Christian piece of legislation. So that would soon be followed in the late 1980s. Ontario had very, had a number of policies in their education policy, or another, a number of items in their education policy, like they had, religion, they had reading the Lord's, sorry, they had saying Lord's Prayer and Bible reading in their public schools, at least in the regulations, like that wasn't always carried out. But to make a long story short, that was challenged. And so in late 80s, Bible reading and the Lord's prayer was put out of public schools in Canada under the charter. And then in 2003, Canada's definition of marriage was changed under the charter. Canada's definition of marriage until 2003 was an explicitly Christian definition of marriage. Anyway, what I'm trying to do here is say there's been specifically Christian laws and policies

in Canada that carried on for several generations or decades, and they were overturned after the charter was implemented. And they couldn't have been overturned before that because the charter changed the foundation of Canada's constitutional system and led to, it gave people who didn't like certain aspects of Christian laws and policies in Canada, gave them a tool to remove those, you know, through the courts. So I'm kind of drifting here a bit. But I hope that's kind of a... Let me be very clear with you.

You don't have to race. We don't have to worry about time. We don't have to worry about you being boring. Believe me, I'm taking information by a fire hose. And some of the things you've brought up, I've heard a little bit about. And sometimes I do a deep dive. Sometimes, you know, I just like, oh, you know, kind of am passing. And then maybe you hear it the odd time back and forth.

I don't know exactly where I want to go off that. I'm going to start with the 60s, I think, because you mentioned people started to turn away from the church. What was it about the 60s that all of a sudden, you know, spirituality or the church or, you know, religion in general was seen as, I don't know, culturally taboo or I don't know if that's the exact way to put it. But if people started to move away from it, there obviously was a reason. Yeah, like I can't offer a comprehensive explanation.

And as I mentioned before, this was happening in all of the Western countries. Right. In the United States as well. So it's like, so it's hard to put like say here's an easy explanation for why that happened. There would be a number of things that were happening. Some of it had to do with prosperity of the post-war generation and stuff. But one of the things I just want to throw in that's really important was at that time we had what was called the sexual revolution. New ideas were brought in about what sexual morality.

should be, you know, for society in general. In the United States, there was a famous scientist named Alfred Kinsey who brought out certain reports on sexuality that were very influential in changing the law. And of course, that was also keying off Alfred Kinsey was Hugh Hefner in the Playboy magazine. That's when, you know, pornography started to appear in stuff. So these kinds of new ideas about sexuality really took hold in all over the Western countries. And, you know, it centered on the United States and came out of the United States. And it was a lot of, this was one of the major thrusts that would, you know, they would push against the church because, of course, the Christian church had strict sexual morality.

You know, sex is only between a man and a woman within traditional marriage. And these new ideas were coming out that, hey, we can have more freedom. We don't need to have these, you know, it doesn't need to be confined between, you know, to a married couple. We can have it outside of marriage. And then, of course, so there was kind of the promiscuity, lost some of the stigma that it had before. And also we had, you know, that's when more ideas about freedom for homosexuality and other sexual ideas came in. So that's one of the things that would push against Christianity in the 1960s. And the reason I wanted to bring that up is because that's kind of the key that led to the cultural, much of the cultural wars that we see still today.

You know, the two main thrusts of the culture war are, you know, abortion and, you know, issues related to homosexual rights, such as same-sex marriage. Those are kind of the two main themes, and then there's other underlying themes like pornography and things like that. Those are the main aspects of the culture war, at least, you know, since the late 1960s and early 1970s. And what's interesting, too, you know, I talked about Trudeau as the instigator of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He was also the Prime Minister who legalized abortion, you know, in 1969. Like, it wasn't completely legalized, but it was the restrictions were loosened to a large degree. And he also legalized homosexuality in Canada. Like, Pierre Trudeau really ties in with a lot of the cultural change that has occurred in Canada since late 1960s.

So is it just, like, is Pierre Elliott Trudeau like, not the Antichrist, but, you know, kind of like, you know, this nefarious character? Or is his belief system just counter to what a chunk of Canada is, maybe a good chunk of Canada is? Like, I think he's a key individual in the changes that have occurred. As an individual, he had many personal virtues. Like, he was very smart, very knowledgeable. You know, as a person, like I don't, I wouldn't attack him as a person, but he had very distinctly left-wing ideas. He didn't like the Canada.

He grew up in and he wanted a different Canada. And so he wanted to bring in fundamental changes. And so he changed many laws. And he, you know, brought in the chart of rights. It's hard to explain how significant that is in Canadian history because we had a particular constitution from 1867 until 1982. And then we had a huge change in the Constitution, in 1982. And, you know, the Constitution is the founding document of a country. So when you

change a constitution, you're, you know, it's not a tweak. It's a fundamental change. And especially with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that's a fundamental change in Canada. So, so with, you know, the kinds of laws that he brought in, especially in early in his tenure, you know, with legalizing abortion and homosexuality, they're bringing in the charter. Those are huge changes in Canada, you know, when you compare modern Canada, say to Canada at the time of Confederation and even for several generations afterwards. And I'll just throw in one other aspect here. He was also the prime minister that led the attack against Alberta, you know, in the 1970s and got, it was because of him that the Alberta separatist movement exists.

Like there was no Alberta separatist movement until Pierre Trudeau. So, you know, I've written a book on the history of Christian political activism in Canada. Then I wrote my history of Alberta separatist movement. And then I wrote my book on the charter. And I realized afterwards that the central person in all of these three books is Pierre Trudeau. Like I hadn't thought of that at the time that I was writing them. But I realized afterwards, you know, he is such a key person. And again, like I'm not saying he's a bad person as an individual.

No, no, no, I get what you're saying. You know, I forget, the audience has to forgive me. I forget who it was if it was on the podcast. I believe it was. I just can't remember if it was an archive interview or if it was an actual episode. Regardless, for new listeners, once upon a time, I did 49 community pillars of Lloyd Minster, my hometown. And one of the stories was back when Pierre was running to become, prime minister and there was a guy and he was a part of the liberal party and he went to one of the rallies

and he said you know the stories he's heard he's heard of hitler and he wasn't saying he was hitler just the the the like the grandos and the fact that everybody was hanging off every single word he said it was scary like it was it was terrifying and that was pierre elliot trudo like how much buyin he had from his party to do what needed to be done et cetera and and and just hang on every word and just it was just he said it was crazy it actually made him leave the liberal party if I remember correctly and I remember thinking man like you know you can underestimate a guy like that you can call him an idiot you can call him a whole bunch of things but obviously he had some things that people really really wanted and he must have been charismatic and smart and able to be a gifted orator

to be on stage and have them you know worked up like that right to be to a point where you're looking around going like man this is this is kind of strange and so when you say he everything centralizes back to one guy. That's a pretty important figure in our political history. Have you, I don't know, and there probably is historians out there that have done the deep dive in a peer Elliott Trudeau. Because, you know, if there's a curse word out west here,

that might be it, you know, that name. What is it about Canada that he hates so much? You know, what is it about his upbringing that he goes, like, this needs to change. All these things need to change. Yeah, well, he was very much, you know, a Quebec nationalist in his own way. I mean, by the time he was involved in politics, he was considered to be like an anti-nationalist. I mean, a major reason for his involvement in

Canadian politics was to make Quebec feel more at home within Canada. Like the, you know, the Quebec nationalist movement really got going during the 20th century. And so by the 1960s, you know, the talks of separation was becoming much more prominent in Quebec. And he, Trudeau did want to have a united Canada. But he thought to make Canada united, we'd have to fundamentally change you know we have to fundamentally change Canada so that Quebec felt at home so you know one of his first pieces of legislation as prime minister was the official languages act which was to make French much more prominent across the country and that was actually kind of the instigator for the first discussions about separatism in Western Canada because it meant that

there'd be French would be much more prominent in Western Canada that was a way of making Quebec feel at home within Canada although I mean I don't think that really worked in Quebec but it sure offended people out here so so he wanted to fundamentally change you know, the structure of the country so that, well, like actually also one of the aspects of the Charter of Rights was that he wanted, like Canadians have historically been very regionalistic, like they've really been attached to their province or their region, you know, Quebecers are most attached to Quebec and Westerners are most attached to the West. He thought that with the Charter of Rights, he could create an institution

where every Canadian would look to the same central document as the one document that made us Canadian. So if like if every Canadian valued the charter as the one great aspect of our country, that would actually bring the country together in a kind of unity, if you understand what I mean. Like if we all look to the charter as the source of our rights, whether you're in, whether you're in Newfoundland or BC or Quebec, and we all look to the charter, that kind of creates a form of unity. So that was actually one aspect of his case for the charter was it would bring some kind of national unity. It hasn't really worked out that way, but it kind of makes sense in its own way. But he thought these fundamental changes would tie the country together, you know, better than it had been before.

So that's kind of at least one of the impetus is for for the changes that he brought about. Was he Christian? Well, like he was a Catholic and apparently a church going Catholic. So like. Because when you say like we all need one document to look at and that's how we all know. I'm like, well, I mean, up until that point, I guess it would kind of have been the Bible, would it not have been? And I mean, like everything was structured kind of off of what you're telling me a Christian mindset. that so that wouldn't it, you know, like, it's kind of all just laid out there, Pierre.

Why do we need to change it so fundamentally? Because you look at, you know, he either had no idea what he was doing, like zero clue, or he was very, very smart and clever. I lean towards the second off of everything I've heard about him. And so you go, okay, what practicing Christian wants to do that? Yeah, no, definitely, it was the latter. He's definitely very smart. but I just want to throw something in here.

When I talk about Canada as a Christian country, I don't mean that that means that Canadians are all Christians or anything like that. Like when I'm talking about, yeah, I totally get that. I 100% get that. I don't think it's just, you know, like where do our values come from?

It stems from this book. That's where it's coming from. Here's where it all comes out. You don't have to agree with it all. But this is what we're running our country off of. Geez, it's worked pretty good. Here it is. This is what it is.

Now, we want to change it fundamentally. We want to remove that. We want to put this little document in. because this document will be better and it will mean more to everybody. And that's kind of what I'm getting. I hope I'm not wrong. And I hope I'm not dumbing it down to make it seem so simple. But that's what it looks like to me.

Yeah, well, actually, you bring up an important point. Like, there are so many Christians who, you know, you might be very dedicated Christians themselves, but they want to separate their Christianity or their religious values from their public participation. So you have many politicians, whether it was like, say, Brian Marrooney would say, I'm personally against abortion, but I don't want to impose my morality on someone.

So there are many Christians who believe that certain things are wrong, but they don't want those things to be part of the law. And so I'm just kind of a little bit speculating here, but I think Pierre Trudeau was the kind of person who was, you know, might have been deeply Catholic personally. But he didn't think that those values should also be reflected in the public sphere. I mean, it's the kind of thing like even with Joe Biden. Joe Biden goes to church apparently every Sunday to a Catholic church. And it's certainly his, you know, Catholic doctrine or values do not reflect them. themselves in the kinds of policies that he promotes, right? And there's been many, many politicians that way and actually many, many individual Christians.

And that's still, you know, that's still a problem that I think some Christian leaders are trying to deal with it, saying to people, you know, it's great that you believe these things personally, but just, you know, they're not just for your personal beliefs. These are actually beliefs for, if they're true for you, they're not just true for you. They're true, generally speaking. And so they should inform your political views, you know, and your social views and your culture views. And not just, you know, your personal, what you do in your home or what you do in your church. Do you know what I mean with that?

Yes. Well, yes. I feel like I'm going back to Preston Manning when he came on. And we talked about his father, right? And doing the radio show. And, you know, how, you know, he had a story about a, and I'm going to butcher this a little bit, but, you know, he showed up to a rodeo.

And there was a young cowboy, old cowboy, and it was Preston Manning, his father on the radio doing his Sunday morning, I don't know, service radio show where he preached. And, you know, the young cowboy said, I don't know. I don't know if he needs to be, you know, showing his religious views. And the old boy said, yeah, I agree. But essentially, at least you know where he stands. Yeah, you're probably right.

Like, at least we know where he stands, right? That's what he's getting informed with. And, you know, nowadays, like, we've just separated them so much. And I'm sure at some point they were overlapping and they're like, we need some separation. It's just you think I go back to when me and Paul Brandt talked about it. Paul Brand said, you know, you go to third world countries and it's just so evident. And here we don't talk about it anymore. We act like it doesn't exist.

And the more we act like it doesn't exist, the crazier our world gets. Like it just gets more and more and more insane. And I'm like, so it's either a nefarious plot or people are a complete nutter morons and didn't realize what their actions, the consequences of them to be. And to me, I go, the more you central it in on one. figure the more nefarious this becomes Michael and I maybe I maybe I'm creating the boogie man I don't know so by the one figure you're you're talking about Pierre Trudeau is that right I am yeah okay but actually can I just pick up on something you said and just going a little bit of a tangent it's not a complete tangent but oh welcome to the podcast world long tangents good sir

now of course Preston manning's father as you mentioned was ernest manning the longest that's correct the longest serving premier in albertas history now there's something very important about Ernest Manning and his predecessor, Bible Bill Aberhardt. They were both radio preachers at the same time as they were premiers. So from 1935 until 1968, there's two premiers, and they were both doing radio evangelism at the exact same time as they were premiers. And this was completely acceptable. And I wanted to bring this up to show the kind of change this happened as specifically in Alberta, but more generally in Canada. This used to be in Alberta, this was fine. You know what I mean? Like Ernest Manning was known as a radio preacher. Actually, Bill Aberhart,

Bible Bill Aberhart first became famous as a pioneer radio evangelist before he became premier was actually his radio audience that he used as the basis you know reform the social credit party and become premier like this was not in Alberta this was not seen as a nefarious thing both abraham and manning but what won all of their elections they they man and i might point out and i apologize to interrupt but i remember thinking i remember asking political nerds this question can you tell me a brand new upstart party that won its first election, like actually walked in and won, and nobody could tell me, nobody could tell me, nobody could tell me. And then one day, I stumbled upon Bible Belt, and I'm like, well, this is interesting. It was literally in Alberta. They ran like the longest ever.

Nobody seems to know this. And he was a preacher. I'm like, gee, put God at the, put God as the rock of the foundation of what you're doing and see what happens. I'm like, now I I think, how did I miss that for so long? How does everybody miss that? Well, we've removed that from probably nobody wants to remember that. But isn't that an interesting thought? We bring God back and you might be surprised of what happens. Maybe not.

Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. I'd just like to point that out because, you know, we've detached ourselves so much from it that it gets to the point where it almost feels like, I don't know, a swear word to bring it up. It doesn't any more to me because I've been talking about it now on and off for, you know, how long has it been, folks? It's probably been over a year, at least, I think. And to me, I just go, I don't know if we need to go back to that point.

I have no idea. I just think, you know, acting like it doesn't exist and that men can be women and women can be men and all these different things and on and on it goes. And we just have these cultural wars going on right now where you're like, this is insane. We are living in insane times. And what's the thing that we can trace it back to? You're telling me we trace it back to Pierre Elliott Trudeau. This is when fundamentally things really shift.

And if I look at it, I go, well, what really shifted removal of Christianity from society? And if you don't believe in Christianity, okay, God, right? And now I'm going to be biased and say Christian God. I'm going to put it that a little stamp on it. But I mean, that's what it seems like to me. Maybe I'm making it way too simple. Well, actually, see, the thing is you don't actually have to believe in God to benefit from the Christian system in politics. Like, let's just go back to the idea of individual rights or human rights.

That came right out of the Christian tradition, you know, it began, especially in Britain in the, say, the 17th century. And the reason we have individual rights protected in North America is it's a Christian idea. And it's very important the idea of limited government, too, because see, with Christianity, God is the highest authority, right? And God, sorry, God is instituted government and the government is under God. So what we have at times in the past, when the government is, violating people's individuals, sorry, individual rights, people appeal to God. You know, you do not have you, they say to the government, you government do not, do not have the ability to override our rights because our rights come from God. In the American Declaration

of Independence, we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. Now that is, that key insight, it's in the Declaration of Independence, but it's a British idea, like it came from the British tradition. The Americans were operating within, you know, the British political philosophy, right? But that's the key idea that we are endowed by our creation, by our Creator with unalienable rights. Now, if you take the Creator out, if you say, well, God does not exist, then where do our rights come from? Suddenly, you have a big problem. And suddenly your rights come from the government.

That's the left-wing view. But if your rights come from the government, how can the government violate your rights? Because it can just change the rights that you have. So the point that I'm making is once you take God out of the picture, you suddenly have a situation where you do not have a higher authority than the government. In the Christian philosophy or worldview, God is higher than the government. And so everybody has an appeal to. to God above the government. Everybody can judge the government by God's standards of the Bible.

And so we can tell when the government is going out of bounds because God has established it as an institution and given it certain limitations. And so when it goes beyond those limitations, we can say, no, you're wrong government because God said, you know, those are beyond, you're going beyond what God said you can do. So from the Christian perspective, we have that ability to judge government by a higher authority. And it's a transcendental authority over the government. Whereas if you remove, like again, if you remove government from the, or if you remove God from the picture, suddenly you're left with government. And where do you appeal? If the government is violating your rights, how can you appeal to something higher? You have nothing. It's just the

government is as high as it goes. So I've got, that's a bit of a tangent, but I was just trying to plug into something. I think you got a beautiful line right there. And it's something I probably need to remind myself of, and probably others do too. And it was you don't have to believe in Christianity to benefit from Christianity. I think, you know, we get hung up on this. And I'm even speaking to maybe just myself. I don't know. That people all need to accept Christianity or whatever. But at the end of the day, if those values are upheld, everybody benefits because that's

what it does to society. Exactly. That's the point that I'm trying to make. Like you can embrace aspects of a Christian world without actually thinking that, you know, Christianity is true or believing it personally yourself. And so this is a sense in which Canada was in a general sense, based on the way. on a Christian worldview from the beginning, like our legal and constitutional system was based on a basic Christian worldview. Now, most of the people operating within it probably weren't necessarily

believing Christians, but they still, you know, the ideas that they were implementing, the ideas of limited government and rights, you know, individual human rights, those come from Christianity. So you can benefit from those without actually believing in the God that they come from. So, yeah, that is a key thing. I had Brian Peckford on here, I think twice over the course of, you know, COVID and, all the, you know, shenanigans of that time. Not to say it's over. Obviously, folks, there's still stuff going on.

But, you know, Brian Peckford speaks very, very, very, I don't know if I can put it enough varies behind that of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Would you argue with him then that, listen, by getting that document signed, that signed the death sentence to a lot of things that we really value, here in Canada? Yeah, I'm afraid I would argue with him. Like I appreciate him. Like he's an

important guy. He did some good work. And he, I mean, he was one of the signers of the charter. He was one who brought it. So, I mean, he should defend it. I mean, if he thought it was right, he should defend it. But I think that there's a bit of a disconnect between, you know, what many people thought the charter was going to do and what it ended up doing. And actually, like, the charter was sold as something that would give us our rights. Like Pierre Trudeau said, you know, we do not have constitutionally entrenched rights. So let's constitutionally entrenched them, that that'll make them stronger. That was the argument.

And that makes, you know, that sounds like a good argument, right? Like, don't you want your rights constitutionally entrenched? And so it sounds good. And a lot of people bought into it that way. But even at the time, though, so actually, you know, that's kind of how they won the argument because most Canadians did go for the charter on that. But there were many people still who opposed it. And actually one of the main opponents was Dr. Ruth Borman here in Alberta.

I don't know if you've ever heard her before. She was a very famous lawyer. She was one of the first female lawyers in Alberta. She was one of the people who was instrumental in getting treaty Indians the right to vote in Canadian elections. She was friends with Prime Minister John Defenbaker. She was actually kind of an early feminist in the sense. But she was conservative in her perspective.

And when Pierre Trudeau brought along his proposal for the Charter of Rights, she opposed it like she traveled around Alberta speaking against it. And she wrote columns for the major newspapers against it. Because what the charter did, one of the things the charter did actually was, well, the original proposal had property rights. I need to step back from in here. In basic Anglo-American theory, constitutional theory, you have the right to life, liberty, and property.

That's kind of the John Locke kind of way of summarizing it, life, liberty, and property. Those are your rights. And those historically have been the ones that have been protected by the Constitution. So the original proposal for the charter had the property rights in it. That was pulled out because the NDP said to Dodo, we don't want property rights in Trudeau. He wasn't a big supporter of property rights necessarily. So they took property rights out.

And so the charter went ahead and was implemented without property rights. Now, Ruth Gorman said this would fundamentally undermine some of our rights. And I think it did too because, see, when you protect the rights of life, liberty and property, that all restricts the power of the government, right? The government can't kill you or imprison you without just cause or take away your property. These put restrictions on the government. And so this was the, you know, these kind of constitutions sent a message to the judges. the government cannot go outside of these bounds.

But when you remove one of those three key protections, property rights, that says to the judges, hey, people are not as protected from the government as they were before, right? Because their rights to property are not constitution entrenched. So the charter of rights kind of deviated from the Anglo-American tradition by not restricting what the government could do on property rights in terms of the Constitution. Now, this isn't to say that we don't have property rights. a certain degree of property rights in Canada, but they're not constitutionally entrenched the way that some other rights are.

So they're like not a primary right the way that the charter rights are. So we did lose some property rights to some degree when the charter was adopted. And that was what Ruth Gorman was so concerned about. So she was a major opposer of the charter of that time because of the loss property rights. And like you can go back and read her stuff about that. You know, she said, you know, we're losing our rights with this charter. And she was right on that point for sure. There was also other opponents of the charter.

and probably the biggest single one was Premier Sterling Lion of Manitoba. Like he right throughout the 70s, well, I guess he wasn't elected until 1977, but when he would confront Trudeau on these things, he's saying, you know, our system is fine the way it is. The Canadian system has been working. We don't need radical changes. You know, don't mess with something that's working. But of course, you know, he lost the argument. But his argument was basically, you know, Canada has followed a British system of protection of individual rights.

And it's worked well. Like Canadians had rights before the charter. This is one of the things I think people need to hear. You know, the charter did not give us our rights. I mean, I was alive. I was a teenager when the charter was adopted. I remember Canada before the charter. I had my rights.

We had free speech and, you know, freedom of it. So we had all those kinds of rights before the charter. So the charter did not give us those rights. They just changed the way they were protected and in some respect limited them. Or could I throw a word at you, maybe interpret it? Like to me, anytime you, I think, I think, forgive me, folks. I'm rolling back in off of holidays, Michael.

So, you know, some days the brain's working. Some days not. You know, like take COVID, for example. You know, like, you know, people try getting religious exempt. No, not happening. They tried doing all these different things. Now they're trying to get, you know, like your vaccine status enthrined in law and whatever. And I'm like, we're trying to put all these different words.

And if it doesn't find in there, then it doesn't, no, you can't. No, you can't do that. And if you go back to simpler times, it's like, listen, body autonomy, leave me the F alone. I have the, you can't mess with me. I'm, you know, the creator and all these different things, I'm being a little bit tongue and cheek, I'm being a little obtuse, I get it. But I'm like, to me, when it was simpler times, I think it was simpler times, it probably wasn't.

It just seems like certain things you couldn't argue from a government standpoint because you could as an individual, a citizen, just be like, listen. You're already stepping over that one, that one, that one. Leave me alone. Oh, yeah, you're right. And today, it seems so complicated to find, you know, what you actually have and don't have, which is funny because, as you point out, this document's been pointed out to be, you know, the reason you have your rights.

And people have, you know, I had a cop on here in the middle officer James in the middle of COVID. He wouldn't give his full name. We never released any video, right? He just wanted to come in and talk about like the insanity. And his family moved from a different country. Why? Because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They moved here for that document.

And it hasn't gone as built. Well, absolutely. And like one of the things is, you know, especially with regard to the COVID limitations is there's what's called the reasonable limitation clause in the charter, you know, that you have these rights and freedom subject to reasonable limits. And the judges, you know, use that, well, we think that these restrictions are reasonable limits, right?

So it's up to who decides what's reasonable. Well, you know, a lot of it comes down in my mind. perspective, I think a lot of it comes down to ideology. I mean, a lot of the judges, let's face it, most of our judges are left wing. They have progressive ideology. So when they read that document, they read it through a lens of progressive ideology. Well, from a progressive perspective, these COVID lockdowns work very reasonable. And so when they look at that in the charter, well, they're going to uphold them every time. You know what I mean? So part of it, so that, I mean, I think Trudeau, I mean, Trudeau wanted to change the country with the charter. I mean, if he didn't

want to change the country, he wouldn't have brought in the charter. He wanted to fundamentally change the country and he did. That's what the charter is all about. And we've seen substantial changes like you can study like in law and in political science. There's all kinds of books about how the charter has changed Canada in one way or the other. And I mean, that was the purpose of it. And one of the changes, one of the most important changes. And actually this is one that that Trudeau wanted. He wanted to transfer some political decision-making power from politicians to judges. That was something he explicitly said. And that was one of the big debates during the 1970s. like I point that out in my book, Leaving God Behind,

there were different parliamentary hearings where political scientists and legal scholars would come before, you know, parliamentarians and say, look, if you adopt this charter of rights, you will be transferring some of the politicians' powers to the judges. Because now judges will have more ability to strike down government policies. But that was something that Trudeau wanted. He wanted that kind of transfer of power from what was called parliamentary sovereignty, where politicians, you know, make most of the political decisions that way, to what was called constitutional sovereignty.

Well, that actually is judicial in the sense that the judges are given more power. So we have had this huge transfer of power from politicians to judges, and that was one of the purposes of the charter itself. I mean, if you look to the United States, the judges actually were not very politically involved until kind of the mid-20th century. You get a bit of a change in judicial philosophy in the United States. And so by the 1960s, Supreme Court judges in the United States are making very controversial decisions. Like in the early 60s, they threw prayer and Bible reading out of the scrolls.

That was one of the most unpopular Supreme Court decisions ever. Then in 1973, of course, you had Roe v. Wade, right? Which was legalizing abortion across the United States. Now, up to that time, states could have abortion legal up until 1973. Like, it wasn't that Roe v. Wade brought abortion in the United States. What it did was it was it removed it from the state's jurisdiction and made it a national right. So, like, there were states before 1973 that had abortion legal. So abortion was, you know, the federal system where you have states or provinces is that, you know, the people in a state,

particular jurisdiction get to decide the laws. So people in New York wanted abortion, New York had abortion. You know what I mean? Yeah, but the Roe v. Wade changed that and said, no, it's not for the state to decide. It's for the Supreme Court to the side. So it was a transfer of power. Of course, that was overturned in 2022 with the Dawes decision. But I'm using as an example because, you know, when you transfer power to the judges or when the judges take power to themselves, they start to make decisions for entire groups of people that those people would have been able to make the decisions for themselves, right? If abortion had been left at a state level, it would never have become the huge national issue

it became in the United States. You know what I mean? Because wherever there was a majority in a state that wanted abortion, they would have it. And when there's a majority in a state that are pro-life, they wouldn't have it. So it vary depending on the people.

And of course, that's kind of the situation that it is now. But the judges, the Supreme Court judges, in the United States, by the 1960s, they were taking this philosophy. They were going to make more of these major political decisions that had been more of a political decision that had been left for the politicians before. And that was the judges making the decision.

That's the point I'm trying to make. I'm going to have to go, you know, to the audience. This, you know, like you think the 1960s. And I'm like, I'm just trying to like put myself in place in time there. You know, obviously World War II is over. Now you have the Cold War in full, you know, motion and everything. And on and on it goes. But it seems so interesting to me that so many things are happening all at once,

all across all these different. countries, right? You're not just talking about Canada. You're talking about a larger, you know, you know, movement on the planet. And what do we see happening right now? Like it's, it's like, you know, you go back to Jordan Peterson when he, when he first testified. I remember, you know, I watched that probably a year or two after. I wasn't up to it back then by any stretch of the imagination. I'm like, wow, he could give that man credit. Like, and I'm sure there's thousands more in Canada and across the country, across North America apologies, that saw what he was talking about, like, holy crap,

like this is going to be, like they understand where this is getting. And of course, you know, I've done many interview on the transgender movement and where we're heading towards. And this idea of, what's the word I'm looking for here, folks, with, you know, humans and computers kind of becoming one and where that leads and how insane that is. And yet, if you extrapolate over, time, these slow little knife cuts or however you want it and how close we get to it and how it's

being funded from, you know, the elites and big money and these crazy ideas, you can slowly start to see where we're heading currently. And I go, man, wouldn't it be something to go back to the 60s and just be a fly on the wall and listen to people talk about this? Because, you know, like this is, you know, obviously the 60s into the 90s, the 30 year stretch was pretty you know influential and every decade is influential but like pretty wild what gets accomplished in that time by a certain group of politicians you know to transfer the power from politicians into judges and you go i don't know was was that thought of like oh that'll be way better my mind goes doesn't that put a ton of power in a select few that are appointed for life so like doesn't the

control mechanism if you have tons of money and power go well instead of a controlling, I don't know, hundreds of people. Now we've got to control, I don't know, what's the number of judges in the states or Canada? Yeah, probably nine, I think, on the Supreme Court level. Nine people. Yeah. And actually it isn't nine you need to control.

You need to control, what, five? Yeah, just a majority, really. So you go, now we need to control five. We consolidated it all the way down to five people. And, you know, this meant, though, that constitutional politics became a big thing in the United States. Like before the 1960s or 70s, the idea of a president appointing a particular kind of judge was not an issue.

Like that became, I think by the 70s, you know, during presidential debates, well, which presidential candidate is going to choose the kind of judges I want for the Supreme Court? That became an important issue, which it wasn't before, right? Because if it is the judges making these important decisions, you've got to choose a presidential candidate who's going to appoint the kind of Supreme Court judges you want. And that's been a, that was a big thing for Trump. You know, in 2016, when he was trying to win the conservative Christians, because a lot of conservative Christians in 2016 originally were very skeptical of Trump because of his background and stuff.

But he went to them and said, look, if you support me, I'm going to appoint the kind of judges to the Supreme Court that you want. And he did, right? He appointed, I think, three Supreme Court judges and they were instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade. So this is kind of another aspect of presidential politics. It's important now that wasn't a few decades ago because when the Supreme Court was not as influential politically, it wasn't so important who was on the Supreme Court. But once the Supreme Court makes the essential decisions, suddenly that's a very, very important issue. And presidential candidates can win or lose support based on the kinds of candidates that they're going to appoint the Supreme Court. You know, this is a really big thing in the States now.

What kind of court, you know, what kind of Supreme Court justice is this candidate going to appoint? Is it going to appoint a, you know, a liberal or a conservative? And that makes a huge impact on the politics of the country. You know, so I wonder, you know, as you continue to talk about. Mike, so when did you decide independence, Alberta independence specifically, Western independence, however you want to slice it? You're like, there's just no getting around this. We need to, you know, we need to get out.

Well, for me personally, actually, it goes back to when I was a teenager in 1981, you know, Trudeau had brought in the National Energy Program. I had been interested, you know, me and my friends, I guess we were unusual in a sense. We were interested in politics, but not, like we were interested more in international politics. Like that was back in the days of Cold War, right? you know, the communism and there was different proxy wars around the world. We were interested in international politics. Something about the National Energy Program and the controversy that arose from that

made me really, really interested in Alberta politics, like for the first time in my life. So when I was 15, I joined a group called West Fed, which was considered to be one of the first Western independence groups. There was just something. I was just really emotionally invested in this, that my community was under attack, and I, you know, felt really deeply about this. And then the Western Canada concept party of Alberta started, and they won, They won a by-election in 1982.

You know, Gordon Kester won a by-election, first Western separatist ever elected in Canada. And I was just so excited, I joined that party. So, I mean, I really despised Trudeau back in those days. You know, when you're a young person, you don't make the distinctions between whether you like the person or their ideas, right? It was just, so I was very emotionally invested in that. And so, you know, during the 1982 provincial election,

I handed out some pamphlets for the Western Canada concept of WCC, because that's what I really believed. So right from then, that's when I kind of, imbibed the idea of Alberta patriotism and Alberta independence. Now, I was involved with that party for a little bit more, for a few more years during the 80s. It collapsed completely with the Reform Party because actually Preston Manning, one of his intentions with the Reform Party was to take the energy of the independence movement and bring it into a political party that would build Canada and make it better for the West, if you know what I mean.

That was one of the reasons anyway. And it worked because all the people, all the major people have been involved in the independence movement in Alberta, ended up joining the Reform Party. In fact, the leader of the Alberta WCC at the time, Jack Ramsey, he became a Reform Party MP. So this was actually a brilliant idea by Preston in the sense that he's saying, you know, let's not use our energy to get out of Canada. You know, let's get in. I mean, of course, that was the original model of the Reform Party, right? The West wants in.

Instead of getting out, let's go to Ottawa. Let's get the kind of the national influence we need so that the federal government will take us into consideration when it makes decisions and not attack us, right? So the Reform Party, you know, absorbed the independence movement and it went away. And so I lost my interest just like just what everybody else. And basically I didn't regain that interest again until, like I wrote my history of it in 2009. That's because when I was doing researching on other things to make a long story short, I would come across a lot of information about the Alberta Independence Movement. I thought someone should write a book.

There's so much information here. Someone's to write a book. So I ended up writing that in 2009. I wasn't a dyed-in-the-wall independence supporter then, but I was very sympathetic to the movement. And I wanted the first history of the Alberta independence movement to be written from a pro-independence perspective. because I knew that if a left winger wrote it, you know, it would not be a proper presentation of what we wanted and what, you know, what concerned us and what we wanted. So I wrote that in 2009. It had so little attention and so little sales that the publisher took out of circulation.

But when Justin Chudeau came, you know, he just first, Justin Trudeau won leadership of the Liberal Party, Canada. And I wrote to the publisher and I said, you know, if he gets to power, this book's going to become relevant again. So we did win. The book was brought back, you know, into publication. realized with Justin Trudeau and some of the policies he was proposing by the end of 2015, and I was full in on independence again. I thought this is, this is the fundamental solution. This is what Alberta needs because Trudeau is doing so many bad things on so many fronts. You know, if we pulled out, that would solve a lot of problems, you know, not just the pipelines

and the natural resource problems, but other problems as well. So I've been really into it again since the end of 2015. I mean, it's become kind of my main theme, although I don't want to lose out on some of these other important things, but it's been my main theme since. then. You know, I think it was Jamie Sinclair who first said it along the lines of, you know, maybe there's a way you could just have Western Canada and Eastern Canada. They could govern themselves. Maybe if we have conflicts and different things like that, we unite. But like Western Canada just thinks about things differently. And that's okay. Eastern Canada thinks about things differently. That's okay. And we don't have to be enemies. We could just realize, you know,

we have pretty cataclysmic differences. And they don't do well together. And, at the end of the day, maybe we should just go our separate ways for a lot of different things so that we can, you know, uphold our values. And if you like those values, then you move towards it. And if you don't like those values, then you move the other way. And now you can go live in either spot and you can have your values and you carry on with life. When you talk independence, you know, I got like, man, I feel like I got Dennis Modri somewhere going, I have all the answers.

Like I feel like I've heard him say that and I still haven't had them on. So Dennis, maybe that's coming next. I go, I feel like that has to be the most complex thing to do. Am I wrong on that? Well, it depends. Like there would be complexity over time,

but the formula for becoming independent is not difficult in and of itself. I mean, this goes back to a Supreme Court decision in 1998, the Secession Reference case. Like you remember in 1995, Quebec held an independence referendum that was almost successful. So the federal government sent a reference case to the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court two questions, at least two questions. One is, can Quebec declare independence unilaterally?

And the second, what was the second one? I'm sorry, it slipped on mind, but the key question was, can Quebec declare independence unilaterally? And the court ruled, no, Quebec cannot declare independence unilaterally. However, if Quebec held an independence referendum with a clear, question and a clear majority of people voted in favor of it, then the federal government has an obligation to negotiate with Quebec for its independence. So the Supreme Court itself created a pathway to independence. This applies to every province. The specific decision was for Quebec, but it applies to every province, as long as it holds a referendum with a clear question, and that's important

because Quebec's two independence referendums in 1980 and 1985, the questions were kind of convoluted and people could be confused by them. So it's a very important that's a clear question. question and a clear majority votes in favor. And so a clear majority would mean more than 50% plus one. I mean, they didn't have a specific percentage. That would have to be decided by, you know, later on the House of Commons passed the Clarity Act to flush out some of that decision.

So the House of Commons would have to this clear or decide, you know, what a clear question was and what the clear majority was. But nevertheless, there's this pathway, you know, and it's not hard to understand. If we hold a referendum with a clear question and we get a clear majority, you know, that is a pathway to independence. It doesn't guarantee independence. It does guarantee the federal government has to negotiate with the province and has to negotiate in good faith.

Because the Supreme Court also said that if, you know, if the federal government tried to throw obstacles in the pathway of a province who had was following that, then, you know, the international community would see that it's, that the legal process is being thwarted. And you might, you know, get some international support for the province. As long as it had voted, you know, with clear majority in favor of independence. So, so that's kind of, you know, what is the, from an Alberta standpoint, What is your clear question you would ask for a referendum? Like, I'm not, like, I haven't really formulated one. I mean, it would have to be something like, would you, is it, is it your desire that Alberta would become a country independent of Canada or something short and to the point so that nobody

could confuse it? Like, that's the way I would do it. I won't be the one writing it, but, you know, you have to have a lawyer write it or something, but it would be something very short. Should Alberta become a country independent of Canada or something along that line? There's probably terminology that's better than that. But, you know, I haven't worked it out myself. I just want to let people know that there is this pathway.

You know, it's a legal and constitutional pathway. That's what's so important. You know, it's not doing something radical. You know, it's not taking up arms. It's not violating any laws. This is actually the constitutional pathway. This is one of the good things about Canada. We have this, you know, opportunity to become independent if things get bad enough that we can become independent.

Actually, can I just go with this back to something you said earlier? I might. Now, you were talking about how wouldn't it be good if we could kind of just all do our own things in our own province? or regions, you know, and unite on the things that we need to. And that is the actual, the original idea of Canada, like in terms of federalism. That's what federalism is all about, that you have a national government that takes care of foreign affairs and defense, you know, an international trade, those kind of things. And the provinces are left, you know, education, health care. They can do, the provinces can do what they want. Like, in theory, that's the way it's supposed

to be. And that would probably work if they would do it. But it's, especially since Pierre Trudeau came along, the National Energy Program and Pierre Trudeau is a tax on Alberta in the 1970s, our energy. That was against federalism. And with Justin Trudeau, what he's doing, you know, blocking our pipelines and our carbon tax and all these, these are things against federalism. That's why I think Alberta needs help because federalism has failed in Canada. Federalism, it could have worked, and maybe it worked for generations, you know, before, you know, before Pierre Trou came along. It's a great idea. And if the federal government would leave us alone, we could, you know, survive on our own this way. But it's because the federal system has

failed that we need to become independent. Because Like I said, it makes sense for Canadians to have a common defense and a common foreign affairs and all these kind of things. These are things that, you know, as citizens, you know, we can leave to a national government and we'll just have our provincial government deal with the things that are closest to us like education and health. That sounds excellent. And if they would just leave it like that, you know, we wouldn't have had to develop an independence movement or I wouldn't support it if it worked. And it works in theory. It's just that they won't, the federal government won't let it work. It's a federal government's fault. And I blame it on federal government, of course, but it's because, you know, Central Canada, because the two provinces, Ontario and Quebec, because they control the federal government, the federal government will do what's best for Ontario and Quebec rather than, you know, so sometimes they'll violate the rules of federalism in order to benefit Ontario and Quebec. And that's the fundamental problem and why we need to become independent. You know, if it was left, if we had a property federal system, it could work, you know, but the federal government won't let it work. And it's because.

they want to cater to Quebec and Ontario. I mean, that's how you win, right? The federal government is you have to win enough seats in Ontario and Quebec. Otherwise, you won't become a federal government. So those governments will always favor those provinces. What have it? You've been doing talks across Alberta, correct? I have been, yeah, especially in 2022 I did, yeah.

What was the, I don't know, what did you see out of the public? Like, what was the, is it that people didn't understand? Is it that people didn't realize it was an option? Was it, I don't know, you tell me, because you're the guy who went across Alberta. Well, like, it seemed to me that people were very enthusiastic about the independence Alberta, independence idea. Like, they didn't know a lot. Like, you know, a lot of the people are older people and they remember some of these

Reform Party things where they were there at the time, but they've forgotten about them. You know, they, they were there, say, at the National Energy Program in Alberta at the time, but they forgot about it. So when I bring these things forward, say, remember this, remember this, remember this. You're like, yeah, you know what I mean? I can kind of build. I start in the 70s and show. all the ways that Alberta has been violated by the federal government.

And when you see them all put together, like for many Albertans, it's like, yeah, we need to get out. You know what I mean? And so it seemed to me there was quite a bit of enthusiasm. Also with the secession reference case, you know, a lot of people didn't know the details or know how simple it could be, like in theory, as to how we could get out. So what I would do in my talks is say, here's the history of it. And here's how many times we've been hammered by the federal government since Trudeau started. And it's just going to keep continuing. And part of the purpose of explaining the history is to say, this history is going to continue this way until we change something.

You know, Pierre Chardototel essentially started attacking us in the 1970s, you know, attacking our oil industry. In the 1980s, we had Brian Maruni, who was supposed to be our savior, but then he did things against the West as well. And one of the key things, I'll just remind people here, the CF-18 fighter contract. Canada had got the CF-18 fighter jets, you know, and one city or, you know, one company had to maintain those fighter jets. There was a competition as to which city would get it. Winnipeg won the competition based on the federal government criteria. So the Maruni government awarded the contract to Montreal because they had more MPs from Quebec. So here the West won the contract by the criteria and it was given to Quebec.

And that actually that incident was so explosive, that led to the creation of the reform party. But it just showed that even with the liberals out, even with the conservative government, we can still get shafted because the whole purpose, like the federal government always has to cater to Ontario in Quebec. So I bring, you know, Pierre Chudeau in the 70s, Mulerrude in the 80s, leading to the reform party, and then with more recent stuff from Choudeau, you can build a real strong historical case how Alberta is mistreated whenever it's beneficial to Ontario and Quebec.

And there's no way we can get out of this unless we become independent. And so, you know, when people understand the history of it, and then they see that there's a way out with a referendum, you know, people are willing to buy into that. It's generally kind of, that was my experience at the meetings anyway. Well, you point on Alberta, but then your example is Manitoba. You know, like, I mean, it's not just, just Alberta that's been screwed.

And I don't think you have to be, you know, you take 10-minute look at Canada and you realize, man, if I'm a politician and I don't speak enough language that Alberta, that Ontario and Quebec want to hear, I'm not getting elected. You know, I sat and argued, well, partially argued, with a prospective politician in Saskatchew. And I never say the name, and I say this all the time, because it was in confidence at the time.

But what we were arguing about is, you know, and I give a lot of credit to Joey Stephan for asking the question, right, was, what is a woman? And even in the small sense in Saskatchewan, so you've got to treat the cities different than the rural population. And I'm like, wow. So, you know, in a small sense, there you have it.

You know, we're going to talk to Saskatoon and Regina and differently, you know, I can go down the list of cities in Saskatchewan. But at the end of the day, there's a small example of it where we got to cater to what the cities want compared to what the rural people want and you're like, this is wild.

It's a complete and utter lie. We could just start with that and see where the cards fall in an election because, you know, if everybody believes that a man can become a woman, then maybe I just need to move. You know, maybe I just need to get out of here. I don't think that's what most people think.

I could be wrong. You know, and so you go with the whole federal thing. You know, I'm like, okay, so we've been getting screwed since the 70s, at least. You know, what is the appetite for getting our current government with Daniel Smith to put forward a referendum? They, like, Shane, I apologize for bringing you into my ramblings, but Getson, you know, when I had them on last time, which is a few months ago now, I was talking to him about, you know, like how we get a referendum for the pension.

You know, like, to me, it just seems, you know, if you need to educate the population, you think it's a good idea let's go out let's educate them let's move on let's put a referendum let's go and you know politics is so slow moving like it's just like well we got to do this and then we got to do that and you know well i can't give you a time frame i got like i want to throttle somebody but i don't know who to throttle because it's this big entity you know so then you bring up this referendum on independence i'm like okay what are we 20 years away from this like i don't know michael tell me that i'm i'm line of myself and it could be faster in that and here's the steps well like it so much depends on the the federal situation. Like this is the problem with the independence movement is the federal government

will do something that's, you know, harmful to Alberta. You get a big upsurge and support for independence and then either people forget or the pressure is off and it dissipates. And so you like say, in the early 80s, you get all these organizations for independence, Malrani gets elected, all those groups disappear kind of thing. Then something else happens. I guess I'm thinking like in the 2000 election, Kretchen ones, there's, you know, an Alberta independence party that's to arise things seem to get better in the economy it fades away and then with jesterdoe it still starts to build again and especially in 2019 when he was re-elected we got the wigsit movement we had meetings with hundreds of people and i i was at one in calgary where someone estimated at over

a thousand you know when you get this big upsurge and then things get better and the meetings dissipate again you know what i mean so this is the problem of the of the independence movement is there's people there who are willing to support it when when they feel something particularly bad has happened but then part of part of it is building the arc before the storm comes you know like to me I went to a waxit meeting and forgive me the the man who was leading the wexit Facebook page and everything who did all the things I just remember thinking he didn't have all the answers and I was a little bit nervous that he wanted to

be the leader now I was just like I want somebody like at the time you know I didn't think Daniel Smith but you know something along that you know they could come in and if you walked in you went, ooh, now that, that's hard to turn away from. So part of it is, is being, you know, you wrote the book. You already know this. You wrote the book and went, uh,

yeah, they removed it. And, uh, but if these things come to pass, I think we should bring it back. And these things came to pass and boom, opportunistic. There it is. I would say, I would save to bet with Pierre Poliev looking like, and I don't, I don't want to sit here and say he's going to win. I have no idea. But, you know, it certainly looks like the poles lean that way.

Well, what's Pollyev going to do? He's going to do things that settle us all down. And so you go, if you're, if you're like serious about independence, you go, well, is it happening in the next two years? Trudeau gets in. I guarantee you there's going to be a big push. I'll be pushing. And if he doesn't, and everybody, I know people are against Pollyep.

I'm just going like the general population, aren't paying attention to this. and if he comes in they're all going to be like, ah, he's in. Okay, oh, the carbon tax is off. Great. Things are better. You can see the moves and levers he's going to pull. Yeah.

So then you go, so when's the next big opportunity for independence? Because this is, maybe I'm wrong on this. And Michael, you can certainly contradict me. I'm totally cool with it. But to me, this seems like you have to have the ship built, the structure built. So when it comes, you go, this is it, right here. Step in, and away we go down the river. and you'll have all the current push you

because everybody's going to be looking for the same answer. That was Wexit. It just wasn't, the structure wasn't there yet. And maybe I'm wrong on that. I hope I'm not offending people because I know there's a ton of people that are working tirelessly on this independence thing. That was just my own eyes, my own experience.

What are your thoughts? Look, no, I agree with your analysis essentially. But maybe the ship is being built now. Like maybe the Alberta Prosperity Project and some of the other organizations, maybe they're going to be in there for the long haul. Like that's the thing. of the organizations in the past were just around temporarily like wigsit and then they fade away.

So if the current organizations fade away, we'll have the same thing all over again. Certainly when Pollyev comes in, he's going to lead to a decrease in independent sediment. There's no question about it. As soon as he's elected, you know, people will think things are going to be okay. And most likely he'll bring in policies that would, you know, make most people in Alberta feel happy. But the problem is the best that Pollyev can offer is a temporary reprieve from the liberals because the liberals will be back. So having Pollyev will postpone the growth of the independence. Now you're lean towards what a buddy of mine, Alan, would say,

maybe we should all just vote for Trudeau. You know, because if he gets in, you know, he's just going to steamroll us further down into the mountainside, and at least it would wake more people up. I'd never say vote for Trudeau ever. I would die before I'd say that. I mean, sorry, go ahead. I was just like, I mean, if we all know that they're going to,

they're going to steady. the boat, everybody's going to go, oh, everything's fine. But, you know, then it's going to just happen again. We're going to get screwed over again. It's like, well, I mean, it is one option. It's a funny option. It's one I would have, you know, I'd probably die on the spot if I checked off Trudeau, you know, like I feel what you're saying. At the end of the day, though, you know, what do you need? You need people to feel pain in order to be like, we need to do something different. And what's going to happen, at least from my eyes, is the pain is going to be removed in a year and a half's time.

And, you know, like, it, things are funny with people, you've already said it. People who remember the reform time have forgotten what the reform was about and you have to remind them. If I wasn't talking to people all the time, I'd probably forget half the stuff.

And that's probably just the human condition. And politicians, smart ones, would know that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's definitely, it's a human condition. Like, it's not a particular vice or anything. It's just the way, I mean, we're all focused on what's happening in our life today, right?

You know, we've got to take care of, we've got to pay the bills and got to work and do that. So it's natural to forget those things. So I don't want to, you know, imply that there's anything, you know, sinister about that. That's just the normal human way. No, no, that's just the way it is. Yeah. And so people need to be reminded. And sometimes when they are reminded, it helps them to get direction to what they want for the future.

Like if I can remind people of all the bad things that have happened to Alberta just in my lifetime. You know, it's not like we're talking, you know, a hundred years ago. Rattle me off the bad things that have happened to Alberta in your life. time. Well, like, oh no, there you. Okay. Yeah. I don't know what happened there. But anyway, like I'm just trying to remember quickly. I mean, that really started with Pierre Trudeau, as I mentioned. And, you know, just to go over briefly. In 1973, the price of oil skyrocketed. So Alberta was able to was going to be able to cash in. Like, Alberta, you know, oil was discovered in the Duke. I think it was 1947. So that was very important to Alberta because Alberta had been one of the

poorest provinces to that time. But still the oil was only, you know, about two or three dollars. a barrel at that time. So Alberta benefited for many years, but it didn't make Alberta the richest province by any means until 1973. There was a war in the Middle East. The price of oil skyrocketed. Suddenly, Pierre Trudeau brought in an export tax on oil. Now, under the Canadian Constitution, the natural resources are owned by the provinces. So that's Alberta's oil. He put an export tax on oil so that the federal government would be reaping in huge amounts of money off of Alberta's oil. This was the first time this had ever been done in Canadian history. That was a, you know, it was a very big thing and Peter Lohid made a big deal about this, calling it the biggest rip-off in Confederation's

history. So beginning in 1973, every year after that, Alberta has been losing billions of dollars to the federal government that was Alberta's money. So, you know, the price of oil fluctuated a bit, although the general direction was to increase over the 1970s. Pierre Chudeau in 1979 lost the election to Joe Clark. Now, Joe Clark only won a minority government for the conservatives. He was only in power for a few months. There was an election in 1980. Pierre Chudeau was coming back. This was his comeback in February of 1980. And basically that, you know, someone later said, Keith Davie, who is a major liberal said that the unspoken liberal motto for that election was screw the West, we'll take the rest. Like their whole thing was, you know, to campaign against the

West, you know, they're saying central Canada, put us back in power and we'll get you Alberta's resources essentially. You know, that's kind of, that's not what they said. That's my words. But that's kind of the idea of it. So when they got reelected 1980, they brought in the national energy program, which was a huge federal power grab over Alberta's resources, you know, to take more of our money. And that's when the biggest surge of Alberta separatism occurred. So that was 1980. There was a bit of a, Lahi made a bit of a deal with Trudeau to decrease some of the intensity of the national energy program, but it was still there. But then Trudeau resigned and Mulroney became Prime Minister in 1984.

And so that led to the first, you know, deflation of the independence movement because we thought Brian Mulrooney is going to be our guy. He said he would get rid of the national energy program. He did, but he took his time doing it. And then of course with the CF-18 program and there were some other things. Many Albertans then realized that the conservatives are not going to do much better for us than liberals. We need our own. And of course, that led to the rise of reform party. I'm kind of summarizing things.

I'm probably skipping things here. No, no, that's all right. So Craig Chan came in. Christian became the prime ministerate in 1993. He wasn't as bad as Trudeau. But again, you know, his focus was on Quebec and Ontario. I can't think it like he was the one who started to bring in the climate change policy. although they were pretty moderate at the time in the sense that they didn't hammer us.

So, and then of course, he eventually he'd resign and Stephen Harper would become Prime Minister. Now, Stephen Harper, of course, had been one of the original Reform Party members of Parliament, so he was seen as being very pro-Alberta. And he, to some degree, tried to pursue a pro-Alberta policy. Like one of the key policies, proposals of the Reform Party was a Tripoli Senate for Canada, right? If we had a Tripoli Senate, that is a Senate, which was each province had an equal number of of senators and one of the ease was equal like there'd be an equal number of senators from each province and so so and the the the senate would be effective it would have actual powers and it'd be elected so we'd have elective effective senators with equal amounts from each province something like that

would protect the west in in the federal government and so we wouldn't need to separate you know we'd have power in the central government that was one of the proposals of the reform party so when stephen harper got in he tried to pursue that to some degree within the limited confines that he had his prime minister but he wasn't able to get anywhere and ultimately you know he brought in some he brought in some proposed some legislation to make senate reforms and they were all you know thwarted one way or the other and eventually there was a supreme court case they made this federal government sent a reference case the supreme court asking about senate reform and that's that supreme court ruled something along the lines that you know senate reform

would have to have unilateral sorry not unilateral unanimous consent of the provinces so that meant for that slammed the door on senate reform there would never be Senate reform based on the criteria that the Supreme Court had. But Stephen Harper was trying to pursue the kinds of reforms in Ottawa. That would help the West. But the doors were always slammed on anything he tried. So he wasn't able to get anywhere. I mean, and for me, this just shows that even in the best circumstances with our people in there trying to do the best they can, the West still can't get what we need, the kind of reforms we need within Canada, you know, that would alleviate the situation that we have. So that's not like a, there's a

sense in which was a good thing, obviously, to have Stephen Harper from an Alberta perspective in Ottawa, but the things that he tried to do to benefit the West were he wasn't able to accomplish them because the doors are just closed on that. You know, the East is not interested in any of the kind of reforms who would benefit the West that would benefit Alberta. So it's bad in the sense that he tried, he went to Ottawa, he tried and it, you know, we can't get what we need. And that just showed it underlined the fact that if we want something, if we want a different relationship, we want a better situation, we're going to need to become independent. That's what it says to me anyway.

Yeah, you're saying the most conservative leader, I think, if I'm summarizing this perfectly or astutely, would be Harper. And in his time, what everybody points to is he could get nothing done. And actually, over the course of, you know, the last 30 years with the transfer power from politicians to judges, if anything, it's gotten cemented that there's going to be nothing that happens at that level. And where you come back to from an Alberta independence perspective is the fact that there's a way to get independence.

There's a way to actually get a bigger seat at the table. That's a referendum on independence. And if we did that, it would probably send a shock wave across all of Canada because, you know, I think, you know, I can't sit here and say what Alberta would say. I have no idea. I just know that there's more and more people every single day. with Trudeau at the helm wanting out. They want no part of this.

The problem is, is the government doesn't move at the speed of even a snail. They move slower than molasses most days. And so you go, well, how do you put the pressure on them to even get it remotely close? You know, because, you know, they're trying to do that with the pension, right? They're trying to do that with the pension. It looks like, you know, 2024 is going to be a year where there's people running around the country talking about it and trying to get the populace to engage with it. and whether or not there's enough of a ground swell of people to push on Danielle to do that, that remains to be seen.

At least maybe that's my perspective on it. I can certainly be wrong. No, I think that's essentially right. One of the things I want to throw in here with a secession reference or the independence referendum, and it's something that Dr. Modri emphasizes. Like, it's his emphasis, not mine. Like for me, I want an independence referendum because I want an independent Alberta. but if there was a successful independence referendum,

independence isn't automatic. It's through negotiation. So someone who didn't necessarily want Alberta to be independent, but just wanted a better situation for Alberta, could still favor an independence referendum. Because once that referendum is passed, during the negotiations, Canada would most certainly come back with different proposals. Wouldn't it be fun, folks?

You know, I just think, Michael doesn't know probably a whole bunch about me, maybe a little bit. But, you know, like once upon a time, I sat and I talked to, you know, the Don Cherry of the world, the Glenn Sather. Sorry, he's a flames fan. So, you know, that one probably pains him a bit. You know, I had, you know, I had, what, Theo Fleury was a flame.

I don't know. Did I have anyone else from the flames? I can't remember now. Regardless, you get the point. I was interviewing tons of NHL caliber people and then COVID hit. And in 2021, it took me a long time. I just went, I'm going to talk about nothing until COVID has gone. That was very taxing on me.

I'm sure it was taxing on the audience. I'm sure it was, you know, a thing, something that got a lot of us through it too. But you think if we all of a sudden had a year out and we're going to have referendum on it, I might be compelled to have like an episode a week on the referendum debate to try and just bring different people on to try and alleviate some of the concerns. Like here's the concerns I'm hearing. Wouldn't that be something? I even think about it with the pension plan, right?

Like I think, whoa. Like if we can just get to where we're going to. going to have a referendum, let's start talking about it. So we can we can have people informed because I feel like when you when you have no idea, you know, the fear of like, I don't know, do we want that? Is it ain't good? Like maybe I'll just vote. It's like let's let's be sure about this. That's not a hard thing to do. I mean, we just start talking about it. We got enough smart people sitting in this province to have some debates. And I know this for my audience. They're brilliant. They're smarter than me. And all they need is the information. We just need to

provide it. That's easy enough. And the big thing we need to do is put pressure from my eyes on our government, Daniel Smith and team to be like, hey, this is something that people want. Let's keep pushing on it. And I know in their own way, they're doing it. I just, I wish government didn't move at the speed of, you know, whatever, you know, as slow as molasses, you know, I wish it was faster than that. I'm picking on our government an awful lot today. I just, you know, to me, I'm ready to have a referendum tomorrow and I know the population needs time and what I'm willing to offer I guess here on the air is like well let's I'll talk about it they say they're going to do a referendum we'll have some people on to talk about it so that we can alleviate some of the concern and and spread that

around and like here and then ask questions so then we can have those questions answered right like to me this seems so self-explanatory that that we could have a lot of change real fast if we wanted to yeah yeah so much depends on what the government's wanted to do and what the government's want to do depends a lot on the pressure they're getting from the people. That's, you know, when the people sit back and they're taking it easy, there's no pressure on the government. You know, things can even go slower than molestus, you know. But if there was like a whirlfire of support, whether it was for the pension plan or independence, I think the government would be more likely to do something that way. I mean, right now, of course, there's not even a talk of an

independence referendum. Daniel Smith's trying to make things work for Alberta within Canada, right? That's that's United Conservative Party policy. So that's fair enough as far as it is. But in order to get a referendum on independence we'd really need like you said a wildfire of support among people to push the government to do it well i mean i think she's thinking like a lot of conservatives and then that she can see like kind of through well it looks like pierre in a year's time and then i get to work with him and and we don't need to separate we don't we don't need those cards why would we we're going to have our guy and we're going to get to do some things and you know uh like to me that's that's the way it looks like it's playing out and so you go well how do you galvanize people pain

Like, I mean, and I don't want that on anyone. I want the complete opposite. But, I mean, that's where we're kind of leaning to. All right, folks, that's going to do it for this portion. We're going to hold Michael for a little substack exclusive. So he's got a couple of extra minutes. I want to ask him about the future and what he sees. So if you're interested in hearing some thoughts that way, we'll take a brief break.

And we'll be on substack next. So come along for the ride, folks.