Shaun Newman Podcast - SNP/WS Roundtable #2

Episode Date: September 16, 2022

Tonight I'm joined by Derek From (co-author of the Free Alberta Strategy) & Michael Binnion (CEO of Modern Miracle Network). They debate the pros/cons of the Alberta Sovereignty Act and how Alberta needs to grow to become more like Quebec on the political stage. November 5th SNP Presents: QDM & 2's.   Get your tickets here: https://snp.ticketleap.com/snp-presents-qdm--222-minutes Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Thursday. I hope everybody's week is cruising along. You know, back in the day, this used to be Thursday, Thursday at bar five. Hey, if you know what I'm talking about, you know. Either way, if you don't, it's okay. Now, if you're looking for a little fun, QDM and 2's stand-up tickets are on sale, show notes, check it out.

Would love to see in Lloyd, November 5th. I think it's going to be a fun night. As for the roundtable, Thursday Night Roundtable, in collaboration with the Western Standard, I'm looking for your guys' input. I think you all have had such fantastic insight into good guests, good topics, and I think you can determine how the roundtable goes, you know, as it moves into the future here. And we got a short window. We've got four pilot episodes.

We're through two while you're about to hear the second. and we got two more to go, and we're going to see where it goes from there. So if you have ideas, please fire them off. The text line is in the show notes as well. I would love to hear from you all and see what you have to say, and see where you want it to go. Either way, I hope you enjoyed today's show. Love having you guys with me yet again,

and look forward to hearing from you all. Either way, let's buckle up, because here we go. Well, good evening, and welcome to the Sean Newman Show on the Western Standard. We are talking the Alberta Sovereignty Act tonight. I'm joined by two guests. We'll bring them in the studio here in a quick minute. First, Derek Fromm, he's an Alberta lawyer, specializing in charter and constitutional issues.

He is one of the authors alongside Rob Anderson and Barry Cooper of the Free Alberta Strategy, a strategy pen back in September 2021, which cornerstone of it was the Alberta Sovereignty Act. And alongside him today is Michael Binion, a charter accountant, president and founder of Quest Air, Energy of Public Oil, gas production company operating in Quebec. He is also the CEO of Modern Miracle Network, where they advocate for a reasoned conversation around energy policy in Canada. Welcome aboard gentlemen. I hope I got all that right for you. Thank you, Sean. Good to be here.

Now, I want to remind you two fine folks, just as I did the previous weeks when I had the three other gentlemen in. This is a conversation. So obviously be respectful and try not to talk over one another all that good stuff. But I really want to point out. I don't want it to be like ping pong. I don't want it to come back to me every time. If you guys get into a conversation, that's what I'm here to facilitate. I'm here to learn just as much as the listener.

And I got your two minds for the next however many minutes we can squeeze out of you. And I certainly want that to be where the topic or the conversation remains. With all that being said, since June 15th, the Alberta Sovereignty Act has dominated headlines. And in recent weeks, you've had everyone weigh in. I mean from the last living signatory of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Brian Peckford, Premier Jason Kenney, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, Selma Lacani, recently a press conference that had four of the leadership candidates all come out, Taves, Gene, Sonny, and a hear. And here are some of the things they've been saying. It will create anger and disillusionment amongst Albertans. It will only set us back, risky and hot-headed, selling a fantasy.

I don't know if I need to keep going. You kind of get the point. Derek, I see you laughing. You're one of the guys who helped pen this thing. what are your thoughts and we'll start there and Michael feel free to jump in as we move along well I think my initial thought is none of them have actually read it and I mean two things by that first off the the Alberta Sovereignty Act is just an idea at this point there is no Alberta Sovereignty Act no pen to paper and so they're critiquing something that's hypothetical

And so these bold claims that it's unconstitutional, it will lead to separation and angst, sure, there's no Alberta Sovereignty Act yet. Now, I think the other important thing indicating that none of these candidates that talk this way have actually read the strategy is that the Alberta Sovereignty Act is one part of a larger strategy. and that is the Free Alberta Strategy. And I just need to maybe give you an idea, the impetus behind that. And the Free Alberta Strategy was born of the frustration of Albertans. I can remember after the first time that the current Prime Minister won the election, there was a lot of angst in this province.

and the most recent win that he had again. And it seems like Albertans have felt, and this is broadly felt by many Albertans, that the federal government is deliberately trying to shut down our oil and gas sector. I mean, this is our primary industry. This is how families are fed in this province. And there is a deliberate strategy to end, that and within a certain period of time. And so there was there's that problem. And so we're hearing

from Albertans that what can we do to solve this? And we looked at the current premier strategy and strategies from previous premiers was basically just to express discontent in some fashion. There might be a meeting between bureaucrats or high-ranking officials and ministers or maybe even the premiers. But in the end, this is a ratchet. It moves one way. At least that's the feeling, the perception amongst Albertan voters. And so the free Alberta strategy was a practical, implementable plan, a strategy that is not

fully flushed out, but it was a strategy to unify. a number of groups of people. Now, the first group of people are those that are just, they want to separate at any cost. What can we do? How do we solve this problem while we leave Canada? We take our toys and go home. Well, those sorts of folks, they've made up their mind and they want to do so. But there's a whole other group of Albertans who are equally frustrated with the federal government, who will never separate under any circumstances. And I think many of us fall into that category where I would find it very difficult not cheering for Team Canada at the Olympics, for instance. Like, I would find that very difficult. I have clothing that has the maple leaf on it.

I would find it difficult to turn my back on that. So I think that's one group of people that maybe many of us fit into is that we're not going to separate under any reason. But now there's a third group of people, and I think this is where most moderate Albertans have been pushed, of recognizing that we have a real problem here, we need to do something about it, what can we do? And so the free Alberta strategy is an entire strategy document that will allow a provincial government in this province to develop ways to increase its independence by pushing the federal government back into its areas of jurisdiction. So this is the idea.

Currently, our view was that the federal government is acting lawlessly. This lawless action has resulted in the erosion of provincial rights. It's a ratchet. It goes one way. And this erosion of provincial rights has no sign of ever stopping. It's been a, honestly, it's been a 100-year process. And Albertans have complained about this for a hundred years. And of late, it's really picked up steam and moved quickly.

And so the whole Free Alberta strategy is intended to keep the federal government in its lane. And it's constitutional lane as defined by Section 91 through 95 of the Constitution Act 1867. And so that's the impetus behind the project. It is not an attack in the rule of law. quite frankly, it is exactly the opposite of that. It is a maintenance of the rule of law. It is not unconstitutional for two reasons. One, a declaration of unconstitutionality is something that a court decides.

There's no act yet. Nothing can be declared unconstitutional. Secondly, all pains will be taken to make sure that it's drafted in a way that will comply of the Constitution and give the power back to Alberta. to decide whether or not they think the federal government is acting within its own jurisdiction. And so it's not unconstitutional. It's not an attack on the rule of law. And quite frankly, I'm not certain the way that we've laid it out, that it's going to, it's not going to cause economic chaos. It'll, it'll increase the certainty in the market because it'll force the federal

government to actually deal with Alberta's, Alberta's very legitimate concerns with how the federal government is impacting upon provincial rights. Well, what do you think, Michael? You're sitting there listening to Derek. What are your thoughts here in some of the things he's tabled here early on? Well, there's a whole bunch of points there, right? And, you know, I would say my, first of all, I talked to all the campaigns, and I would say all the campaigns have read the Free Alberta Strategy.

And I have more than, I read it some months ago, and I reread it again for the show. show. So I'm, you know, one of my big questions for Derek was, you know, is the, because when I read the Alberta Sovereignty Act explanation that just came out recently and compared it to the description in the Free Alberta strategy, it seemed very much the same thing. And so I, I hear Derek confirming that yes, it is the same thing and it is part of the bigger strategy. So that, that's one big question I had. Is this, is it just a coincidence that's called the Alberta Sovereignty Act or is it actually the same Alberta Sovereignty Act as we read about in Free Alberta strategy. And I would say, Derek, I mean, and I'll come back, I want to come back to this

a minute because I want to talk to you about, like, me, my biggest concern is very much the rule of law issue. But I'll just, I'll just come back and say, you know, why do I care about this? I mean, our, you know, first of all, I was chair of the Kenning and Taxpayers Federation. I'm chair of Manning Center, which is now called Canada Strong and Free. I'm, as you said, executive director of Modern Miracle. I advocate for oil and gas. And, you know, I, sort of, I certainly agree with everything Derek said about, you know, our oil and gas industry. That's why we started modern miracle to advocate for it. But let me add on to this.

We found a giant gas field in Quebec. It is enough to replace 50% of Russian imports to Germany. It's enough to probably take Quebec 50% off of equalization. It's a giant, giant field. And we're not just being blocked from developing it for the last, you know, the last 10 years. you know, much like Alberta Pipelines, LNG plants, I mean, our projects block there too. It's worth billions of dollars to us. It's worth probably even more to the province of Quebec. And they're expropriating it for a peppercorn of compensation. So, you know, I would say that for me,

this issue of that, you know, the categories of people that Derek talked about, you know, I doubt there's another Albertan that has a more vested interest in doing something. And I also, because of my 20s, odd years dealing in Quebec. I mean, I've worked very closely with Lucian Bouchard. My wife and I've had dinner with them. Danielle Turp has been to my house for dinner. I mean, Perry's well was a shareholder. I really know personally well the people that were the architects of the 1995 strategy to separate, which of course culminated in the 1995 referendum, which was unsuccessful. So I'm not sure there's another Alberta that also understands better the Quebec strategy and what they do day to day and what they were doing in 95 to gain more political power in the country.

I strongly advocate that, A, we have to do something. I'm probably with Derek. It'd be, you know, I'd hate to not to cheer for the Canadians in the Olympics, but it's got to a point where we have no choice but to do something. As I said, there's probably nobody in Alberta with a bigger reason the care that I do. And, but what we have to do, it has to be effective. It has to work. And I have to tell you, I think the Quebec strategy has been the most effective one that we've seen.

And my view is the free Alberta strategy goes the opposite direction. My big, honest concern about it is it'll take us backwards and it will take us further away from more political power in the country, not closer. And I'm strongly advocating that we, you know, learn for. from what Quebec did and work more to game. And it's not just about holding the referendum. That's the tip of the iceberg. It's the 90% of what they do under the surface.

So that's, I guess, where I'm coming from. And my worry there, I guess Derek, I'd say, first of all, I do think people have read the Free Alberta Strategy. I don't think it's a problem that they haven't read it. I mean, not everybody, obviously, but certainly, certainly, you know, the campaigns have. And a lot of, you know, there was a great article by Howard England recently. He clearly read it.

And I hear what you're saying. It's not technically an act, but I, okay, so my first thing is like, would we not agree, though, that it's an outline policy and that we can, you know, we don't have to necessarily read the act to say that this is an intention to make an act based on a published policy. And so the two things I'd say to you is it's a published policy. If the policy would be unconstitutional, we could presume the act that follows would be two. And then another thing, just to reconfirm with you, which is a public. is what I thought when I read it, that it was very much in line with the Free Alberta strategy, that it is just the first step in an overall strategy. Those two things that we could say are fair. Yeah, I believe so. I believe it's fair. Now, of course, I don't speak for Danielle Smith,

the candidate who has been talking about the Sovereignty Act. It's, that's not my place to speak for her. Obviously, I don't have that authority. But just your view is, would you agree that When you read it, it's very much, like I would say I didn't find any inconsistency with Alberta Sovereignty Act section of your report and what was published. I didn't see any inconsistency. Yeah, I don't think there is an inconsistency. But of course, you know, political candidates, once they gain office, they often, you know, get advice on how it will be draft or, you know, legislation that they proposed, policies

they proposed from Alberta Justice, for instance, in this case. and Alberta justice will have very strong opinions. And obviously, they're the ones they're going to be doing the work at that stage. And, you know, this is, and it's, again, it's a strategy document. It's, I wouldn't even say it's to the level of policy. The policy, if there is one, and again, I don't speak for the Daniel Smith campaign, would be that we're in a tough position, what can we do about it? And we need to do something, and we need to do something that preserves the rule of law.

So the most clear way to do that is to enact legislation that purports and in practice does preserve the rule of law. So we don't end up with a lawless Alberta. And with all respect to Howard, Howard, if he read the strategy, completely misconstrued it in his most recent article where he said it would require Albertans to be civilly disobedient. And that was precisely the opposite thrust of the entire report. because if we want to push back against Alberta, the only plans that have been offered so far, other than potentially at the end of the, in the 1980s and through the 90s,

what Preston Manning was running the Reform Party, the only solution has been that Albertans individually need to be civilly disobedient and take great personal risk. And Howard Anglin fell into that trap and was complete misconstrual because what it does is when we have the Alberta Sovereignty Act as part of the Free Alberta Strategy, if there is civil disobedience, which I would contest there is not.

If it's drafted in consultation with Alberta Justice, what it would require is it's the provincial government that takes the risk. Right. But all we can really go by is what's written down, right? That's correct. And so you're now saying, well, yeah, but there's, you know, okay, but maybe what was written down we don't mean. Oh, no, no, that's not what I said. Maybe Alberta justice will change it.

Or maybe- No, those are all hypotheticals, and I don't think fair for this discussion. Like the, what I think we have to deal with is the Free Alberta strategy is written down. And the policy is written down. And let's just deal with that. And then we can, and by the way,

I would hope that, let's agree on this point. I would very much hope, given my concerns, that through the process, of working through the Justice Department and the process of working through caucus and the process of working towards a vote in a democratic process, I very much hope there'll be some significant changes.

So that's agree, I'm with you on that point. But at least for right now, all we can deal with is what people are stating they want to do. Well, and that's correct. And that's exactly what I tried to disavow was that Howard Anglin didn't actually engage with the document as it is written down. Yeah, I said a note to Howard,

I said, I think I have a couple disagreements with your article too. He's a very smart constitutional expert, but of course it's an op-ed and it's probably not as well as research as a Supreme Court brief. And I think he acknowledged that it was a very short op-ed. And if you want to dig into details, he'd make some changes. But just let me get to the thing that you're saying, and I'll get to the thing, the part that I find the most troublesome. And it sounds, and again, it's written down in both the policy and the Free Alberta strategy, but you're saying something slightly different.

one is you said hey declarations of constitutionally constitutionality are only done by a court and and of course I agree with that I mean that's like that if we're playing hockey you know decisions about if it was if it was high sticking or not are only done by the referee but everybody has an opinion right everybody and often people have a strong opinion but at the end of the day the referee decides so this is the same thing for courts but but the free Alberta strategy is very clear about that that Alberta should not follow the rulings of courts where there are federally appointed judges. So I find that very troublesome and contradictory

to what you've been saying. In addition, the policy itself says that if a court finds it unconstitutional, any action taken by the Alberta government, any action taken by the Alberta government is if it's found to be unconstitutional by a court, that the Alberta government will then have to decide what to do,

It doesn't say, okay, well, if it's found to be unconstitutional, we'll agree with that. So in both your strategy and the policy, there's this, in one case explicit and the other case, implicit claim that we will not follow the rulings of courts on constitutionality. And this is where I feel like the whole rule of law problem. As I said, this is my biggest single problem with the whole thing. And as I said, it's in writing. So I don't. Yeah. Yeah, and so that's a very interesting point.

Let me try to explain what I think you said so that I'm not misunderstanding, and I think hearing it again might help listeners too, is basically there's this stream of thought in the Free Alberta strategy that when a court decision is, let's just say for now, contrary to Alberta's interests, which I'm going to come back to that in a moment, contrary to Alberta's interest, in the view of the legislature, in all of our MLAs. And they'll hold a vote on it in the legislature

and decide effectively during that vote what to do. And if they decide that, look, we're not going to enforce that court decision in the province. There'll be a time period over which that basically notwithstanding, similar to a notwithstanding will function. I think that's a summary of what you're saying. And that itself here is an attack in the rule of law. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, there's two places like,

to go in this conversation with you is one is to go through with what I think it will be a so much so much more effective strategy which is to do what Quebec does. You know, customize it for Alberta, but do what Quebec does as opposed to this, this. By the way, I want to tell you, Barry's a brilliant guy and Rodney. I mean, and I don't know, I haven't met you before, but I mean, I can, if you're, if you're hanging out with those guys, you must be smart too, right? Michael, Michael, can I ask a question here? Yeah.

You say the Quebec strategy. We should do the Quebec strategy. But then I go back to something you said that just has confused me. You talk about this, and I hope I'm saying this right, and please correct me, this gas formation you find that could be worth billions of dollars, but Quebecers can't even use that because the federal government won't. No, no, no, that's the Quebec government that's, the Quebec government is expropriating. It's not the federal government.

But certainly what we know is that the federal government's not been overly helpful in dealing with Quebec blocking. And like the federal government, the liberal federal government was certainly not very helpful over pipelines. They've certainly, they've not been helpful. You saw, I don't know how, I mean, I listened to the entire press conference with the chancellor from, of Germany and Trudeau, very clear that Trudeau is not really helping us on LNG. And I can tell you that in Quebec, there, you know, we've got an issue of being expropriated with no compensation, which, you know, speaking of rule of law, is also outside the rule of law. even if it might be legal. So, yeah, but if I, but that's not,

that's a combination of provincial and federal jurisdiction that is making it difficult for Alberta on our oil and gas. Yeah. So, so, I mean, I would like to come back to you and ask, ask what, what you think the Quebec strategy is, but I want to answer the rule of law question. So I think, I think what's important in, and how, actually, Howard Anglin, Jason Kenny,

and others have misconstrued and or misunderstood, current candidate, Brian Jean, does this repeatedly as well, is that it's just, you know, whatever the Alberta legislature doesn't like. We're just going to say, no, it doesn't work here. We're going to ignore it. Court decisions, nah, we're just going to ignore. That's not in the Free Alberta strategy. Certainly, we may suffer from a first draft problem.

If someone can find that in there, that's not an intended result. What is intended is this. Section 91, 92, all the way to 95, lays out often what's termed exclusive jurisdiction. And if you go back long enough in constitutional studies, let's go to the Quebec, the Quebec conference in 1864. During the Quebec conference 1864, John A. MacDonald, during the process of drafting these provisions in the Constitution, said, look, these are so clear. we're never going to have a conflict. We're not going to have a conflict with the provinces. Everyone knows their jurisdiction we're going to run the problem.

And, you know, honestly, the problem started soon. We didn't have a Supreme Court of Canada until seven years after that. And the reason the Supreme Court purportedly wasn't there is because the federal government didn't see a purpose for having a court of final appeal

within Canada. But eventually it became desirable to quote sort of keep the provinces in their place and so this is early on in but did we have a Senate yeah yeah we had a Senate wouldn't we just in the British system that your court would have gone to the set to the bar oh yeah absolutely but there was no there was no court of final appeal within this country so just saying that there was it was this idea at the time that the Constitution is so clear there's never going to be any conflict. It didn't work out that way, very obviously, right? And so even even until 50, 60 years ago,

the sort of the legal ease in the constitutional conversations about jurisdiction was that there were water-type compartments. And the metaphor had to do with, you know, bulkheads in ships. And so that when one part starts going down, we put the bulkhead out and it keeps the water out in the ships afloat. Right. And that the jurisdiction. But you're a lawyer, right? So I'll, I'll I'm going to grant you this point. You're a lawyer. Lawyers draft contracts for me. They're always watertight when they're drafted.

They're never watertight when somebody decides to sue me and challenge me in court or vice versa. Right. So we can agree that that's just the way things work. And it's probably no huge surprise that there's been conflicts of people's economic interests that have resulted in challenges to challenges these so-called watertight drafting. But I don't think anybody's going to be surprised to find that there might be loopholes that people find in both constitutions, statutes, and contracts. Yeah.

Now, I don't think anyone's surprised at that, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying there is a fundamental philosophical shift. And now we're into the area of so-called cooperative federalism, which means this. It's starting to mean this. First off, it was, you know, government is complicated. Life is complicated. Sometimes jurisdictions overlap.

But now, as I think all those of us, Albertan's reading the, the Supreme Court's decision in the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act reference, we're very concerned. Many of us called it a Trojan horse, meaning that now the federal government, under the guise of environmental law, can do whatever it was. But you and I, we all agree on this too, right? Well, this is why it's important. And this is all preamble to establish why the rule of law is important.

because now we have a lawless federal government that's been... That's a throwaway line, right? What have they done that's lawless that a legitimate court has ruled as lawless? Like, I mean, I get your saying it's lawless. This is my whole problem with the rule of law. If the referee says it's high-sticking and I say it was accidental, who gets to decide? You're the one that just told me that the expropriation of a gas field in Quebec was lawless.

No, I didn't. I said it didn't. You said it was contrary to the rule of law. It might be in statutory law, and it might be permissible according to law, but it's contrary to the rule of law. Right, but as you as you well know, the rule of law is an unwritten common law type concept, and that by statute and other reasons that there are times when the government has the legal power under our Constitution to overrule the rule of law. You know that, I know that, I know that. No, I'm actually very close to that understanding. Well, I'm opposed to it too as a theory, but as a practice, this has been the case for probably a thousand years in British common law, right? No, I don't think so. So the rule of law for me, maybe this is a problem that many people have with this is the rule of law is just that no one individual is above the law, that there's checks and balances that keep people within the law.

The king is not above the law. He is not the source of the law. In fact, our constitution explicitly denies that by mentioning the supremacist. of God alongside with that. And the idea is, you know, believe in God if you want. It doesn't matter who it is. But the idea is that the ruler is subject to somebody else's law. That's the concept.

And so the rule of law places the entire legal system, the politicians, everyone within the law, they cannot act contrary to the law without facing the penalties of the law. Now, the Westminster system, they can change the law. This will get way too theoretical for people very quickly. but the whole point being is if there is a legally passed statute that, for example, says, I'm going to expropriate your property without compensation. Yeah. That statute is a law.

That's correct. And that's actually... In the absence of that statute, the common law or the rule of law would say you cannot do that. That is not incorrect. That is, in this country, there are no common law property rights that will protect you from the political authority expropriating your land. In fact, it's only established the principle that compensation is due. Okay. I'll just say, Derek, I have a few different reasons to have made, to have read the cases on expropriation without compensation under the common law. And so let's just

agree to disagree, but on the basis that I've read them carefully with good reason and recently. But But what I would, that's just, I would get back to this idea to the main point here is the, is that our, can we, the, your document says if we decide, if the Alberta legislature decides that the government is being lawless, that we can ignore a court ruling that we also think is lawless. And I'll just get back to my analogy. If the referee says it was high sticking, but he was wrong, or at least I strongly think he's wrong, can I just say, well, I'm not going to the penalty. Okay, so your analogy doesn't work, and here's why. It's because it puts us into the game. Alberta government is not a player in a hockey game. We're not a subject of the federal government. The provincial government is another order of government that is equal but distinct. And so really what it is, is it doesn't fit in the sense that we've decided we're going to be subject to whatever.

Ottawa desires. Now, this is the important thing. And all this preamble about the rule of law has been leading towards this. But there, you understand the analogy? I do understand the analogy, and I don't think it works. So the referee is the court, right? The referee is the court. Yes. Oh, I do, I do understand. So the GP, the GGPA, the carbon tax, I'll just call it that for now on. The carbon tax was this Trojan horse. Well, what did that? What did lawyers mean and commentators mean when they said that? Well, you allow the federal government to come to Alberta and say, you know what, your regulations on the type of furnaces you allow to be installed in people's home, we can't do that. We can't allow people to have wood burning stoves because it creates too much carbon dioxide.

Or your tires aren't sufficient or refrigerators have to be of this type. It allows for such meddling in provincial rights, property and civil rights, that it can't be that both have complete jurisdiction overlapping. So in instances like that, when the federal government says, we're bringing in the GPP, what would the Alberta Sovereignty Act do? Well, it would say, you know what, this is going to change, fundamentally change the way the provincial legislature controls property and civil rights in this province. We're going to take a precision strike and say, look, we're not going to allow the feds to regulate what tires you put on your car in this way.

We have our own regulations. It's our jurisdiction. So did a court say, did the court in the reference case say, look, the federal government can control tires? No, it did not. So the court's decision allows for that. It's a Trojan horse. But will the federal government eventually try to occupy that space? I think they will.

In my opinion on the carbon tax, they already are. And I think that's probably, as the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled, that was probably one of the most dangerous. And Saskatchewan. Yeah. Well, yeah, Alberta Corbyo, I thought, did the best job of outlining the danger of expanding peace order and good government in that way. And so I briefed the Alberta. I did a briefing as the justice asked me to do a briefing on that case. And they took a lot of what I told them. But the problem, the one thing that they didn't do is I said, you cannot let stand as a statement of fact that there is a climate emergency. Because if you do, then then in the, when there's a.

So climate emergency, getting back to rule of law issues, I think that the Supreme Court may decide that because it's an emergency, in a democratic and free society, this will be a reasonable use of the peace order and good government clause to override provincial rights. And the Alberta, none of the provinces, Ontario and Saskatchewan didn't touch it at all. Alberta did, and I think that was, I think that was a big error. and I get why nobody wants to get into a climate debate in the court, but just taking it as, you're right, it's a climate emergency, the world is ending, there's a fifth extinction coming, but because the Constitution says this, that Alberta should get to decide for itself.

I mean, you could see why there would have been a motivation by the court to potentially do what it does, even though I strongly disagree with it, I think it's super dangerous for the future of the country. I think in and of itself, it's a reason why Alberta has to wake up and fight for autonomy. So I'm 100% with you on that. I'll just come back to, and maybe we're not going to just agree to disagree. I don't think, and I would say if you want to talk about playing the federal game,

which Albert is terrible at, and Quebec is excellent at, in the federal game, there is a referee. It's called the Supreme Court. And we all have to agree that we're going to follow what the referee says. And when they say it was high sticking, we have to go to the penalty box. Even if we think it's egregious, unfair, the referee was blind, he was biased, he was all these things. if you don't go to the penalty box, the game is over, right? And I would say, like, I'll just have a couple examples.

Like, what if it was an actual emergency? Like, let's say it was a war. And the federal government came and said, you know what, we demand that you sell your oil to the armed forces, and we demand you don't sell your oil to our enemy. And Alberta is just a second. That's provincial jurisdiction. It's clear.

It's in Section 91 to 95. We get to decide that. I think people would find that a bit egregious to think that Alberta could do that. But don't you think, but don't you think, Michael, that you have to have faith in your MLAs as the document, I think, lays out. They would vote on it in a 24-hour period. And you're acting like Alberta's going to abandon all of a sudden Canada for sticking up for some of his rights.

In saying all this, guys, as I listen to you go back. I don't think that. You don't think that? No, the point of a constitution. Because if we all just thought that the MLAs would always be imminently reasonable and imminently fair, and judicious, we wouldn't need a constitution at all. Like the whole point of a constitution is to protect people from the people in power. And the whole reason to have courts and laws is to protect us.

I just find this whole idea so contrary to what Albertans believe. Albertans are the most in favor of direct democracy. And here we're saying, well, we're going to give the power to our MLAs to ignore the constitution, which is the only thing that actually protects us from them. I find it, I find it contrary to our, I find it contrary to what, certainly contrary to what I believe. You know, the way you just described it there is that, I mean, you're getting into Brian Jean territory there.

It's just not what it's about. I mean, the same thing with Jason. But I'm just reacting directly to Tron's point. Like, can't we just trust our MLAs? And I'm going, well, yes. I mean, we do right now, don't we? I mean, what we're asking. We don't.

No, what I would say is that we have a charter of rights. Why do I need a charter of rights? I'm worried that a politician might pass a law. Okay, okay. So, I mean, you're often left field, to be frank. Again, let's agree. Let's agree one of us is. One of us is in left field for sure.

And I think the idea that we're going to ignore court rulings is in left field and unacceptable. And I think at the end of the day, Albertans, when they realize that what we're talking about, is allowing a legislature to decide itself when it will follow the Constitution and when it won't. Yeah. That is going to, I think you'll find how Burtons will be the most opposed to this once they figure out. Okay, so there's two responses to that. First, that was a straw man. And I'm sorry, that's dismissive, but I've been over it already.

But the second one is that it's already happening. We have a notwithstanding clause in the Constitution that applies to sections, what is it, 2 through 7 and 15. And we trust legislatures to do that. It's been invoked a number of times. And we have still provisions built into the Constitution Act 1867 called disallowance. and reservation, which allow the Attorney General and the Governor General to do the same thing. So, Derek, if you said to me, we would like to make a constitutional amendment to give us the equivalent of a notwithstanding clause in Alberta over sections 91 to 95,

that's a great idea. The notwithstanding clause you refer to is inside the Constitution. Yeah. So now, look at this. And again, I'm going to make this point again. I'm trying to make it clearly. the idea is to stay within the Constitution. And essentially what happens is, okay, the Alberta government votes.

And, okay, we're not going to, under the greenhouse gas pollution, I promise to call it the carbon tax. I'll call it carbon tax law. What's going to happen is they're going to start regulating the tires we can put on our cars or the sand we can put in our sandbox. Is that school? They're going to start regulating that. The Alberta government, then they have a debate in the legislature,

sure the public's involved. The media is there. It takes a period of time, rich debate. They say, you know what, we're not going to enforce that for 60 days. What happens is this. Now, look, when the federal government infringes on our jurisdiction, we have to go to court and we have to sue them. And you know that, you know very well how long that takes. The carbon tax reference was extremely expedited, extremely expedited. And it How long? It took a number of years. Now, so what is that, what results is that going to get for us? Well, we can wait a number of years.

Meanwhile, we have clear constitutional jurisdiction in the opinion of our legislature, which is supposed to be in a dialogue with the courts, right? It's supposed to be in a dialogue with the courts. And essentially what happens is it makes the federal government come to us and sue us or negotiate with us. So you know what? We're not going to regulate your. your jurisdiction that way. It gives

the power back to Alberts through the legislature, using the rule of law, and again, everything's tied back to the Constitution. Will we give the power to the legislature to ignore charter rights? No. That's not in ignoring the Constitution.

This is the problem that Jason Kenney has when he talks about well, what if BC decides that they don't want to follow Supreme Court decision allowing the pipeline to be built through It's, you know what? The federal government clearly has that authority. B.C. couldn't enact a sovereignty act and dispute that.

That's not what this is about. This is about keeping different levels of government, different levels of government within their jurisdiction, not expanding the jurisdiction of any level of government. The Alberta legislature does not have the constitutional authority to violate the constitution. What we're saying is that federal government, I've read your document,

And the document doesn't say that, right? I mean, you say, well, you know what? To make this work, we're going to have to get our own police force because what if the federal government just sent in the RCMP? And then you say, we have to have an independent banking act because what if the federal government just were to come in and talk to a business and say, okay, we're not going to, one of your specific examples,

we're not going to have a carbon tax anymore here because that's unconstitutional. And we've decided, in spite of what the Supreme Court says, we've decided on our own, it was unconstitutional. But by the way, if I had been the referee, I would have come to that conclusion. But I wasn't. I wasn't.

And so, but we're now going to set things right here in Alberta. And we're going to say, hey, you know what, businesses, you don't have to collect the carbon tax anymore. People, you don't have to pay the carbon tax anymore. And the way we're going to be able to do all that is it's not just a sovereignty act. It's also, we're going to take over all the policing. We already have control over enforcement of property, which I, by the way, that's what I think is the most interesting academic thing about your paper, is that the intellectual academic exercise of saying, hey, if we wanted to do this, what would it take to do?

I find that fascinating, and I really thought your doctor was excellent well done enough. And then the final point you're talking about is we have to, we'll have to provide Albertans places to put their money so that the federal government can't go collect that carbon tax from them directly, and then Alberta is going to start collecting federal money and remit what we want to remit. And I'm going to go, let's, okay, here's some, so there's the, you know, that's not even the illogical conclusion. That's actually where your paper arrives in writing, right?

And I look at all that and say, well, here, I have a few problems with that. Like, number one is it will take no more than a letter from Revenue Canada telling me I forgot to remit my carbon taxes. And by the way, you could go to jail and you'll pay a fine. And I'll say, well, I don't know. Derek told me I'm keeping my money in this new Alberta bank and they can't get that. And he's telling me the police can't come to Alberta and arrest me. So maybe it's okay for my business to continue to remit those taxes to the Alberta government, not to the federal government like they told me.

But I'll think, you know what? I think what I find. I don't know. I'm a bit worried next time I fly to Toronto. They'd arrest me. And I'm a little bit worried that maybe they'll seize my condo in Kelowna because they can't get the one in Alberta. And all of a sudden I'm going, man, oh, man, I have now I have to send the money to Alberta government and I have to send the money to the federal government.

And so, I mean, I just look at all of those things. I think, wow, it gets to the point where I don't think I could comply with all of that idea. I will tell you, though, if it was limited, and your document is not in any way, shape, or form limited. But if it was limited to the way you're saying now, we merely want to put a stay on the enforcement of a federal law until it's determined if it was constitutional by a court, then while I'm not sure that would be technically constitutional or technically legal, I could see. that, hey, as a practical matter, you could at least stop the enforcement of the law until it

So I think, Michael, you're conflating both the Sovereity Act with the strategy. You described the strategy very well. And the strategy is, you know, I'm not going to say that I want to see it implemented. It was somewhat of an academic exercise, and it was, you know, a very first draft. And this is a way forward to do what you said. But the Sovereignty Act is what we're talking about. and the Sovereignty Act is different than the entire strategy. Well, except the sovereignty is the last portion of what you described. Except as we established up front, the Sovereignty Act in the policy document is basically a layover for the Sovereignty Act in your document. Yeah, well, yeah, for me.

And not speaking for a campaign, and I think the reason we're talking here today has endorsed some version of the Sovereignty Act. To my knowledge, he has not endorsed the Free Alberta Strategy. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree with that. I don't think she has either. I don't think she has either. Using the exact same name as in your document and using the exact, you know, pretty much the exact same policy makes one wonder. But, but anyways, I hear you on that. And just, I need to talk about the strategy in the whole.

I need to talk about the strategy in the whole because you, you laid it out. And there is, Sovereity Act was one piece of legislation. I believe there is three, four, four, five other pieces of legislation that were drafted in consultation both with academics and many other lawyers. And the idea was, look, here's a possible path forward. It wasn't, this is the path forward. This is a possible path forward. This needs to be explored. This could get us to the result that we want in the end of an Alberta that's freer and sovereign within Canada.

that we'll finally put to bed all these problems we have. Now, having said, you know, you're like my condo in Colonna. Well, there's nothing in this act that takes away the choice of individual Albertans. No one's going to force you to bank in a particular place. Certainly, I didn't draft it with that in mind because I'm all about people making individual choice. In fact, that was one of my biggest beefs with the last two years of COVID restrictions, is that it removed choice and socialized risk. And so I am very opposed to that.

And what I hear you saying is that somehow we can be cast as taking choice away from Albertans with the Free Alberta strategy and making socializing the risk. That is not the case at all. There was no attempt to do that. If you have a clona in BC and you want to continue to remit carbon tax, have that. You know what? There's many businesses with offices throughout Canada. It would be interesting. And the whole strategy, if implemented.

I have no idea if it ever will be, would have to be in a lot of consultation with vested interests. Okay, so if you're probably too far down to hypothetical, because like even you said, it was just an accident. Here, here, fellas. Let me hop in here. Sure, Michael. Finish. Yeah, finish your thought. Sure.

Your own document recognizes the problem, though, is that the federal government has the ability to cut off money back to Alberta. Yeah. And so your own document recognizes that if you're going to. to get away from this idea that we are not going to enforce these laws. And then the federal government choose to start enforcing them. They have a lot of tools in their toolbox, including the fact that they can tax you directly and then not remit the money back to Alberta. And that doesn't even get into RCMP and arresting people or anything.

And so therefore, Alberta is going to run out of money quickly if you didn't have a find a way to get some of those taxes remitted. And as soon as you start doing that, you're going to be into all the problems I just said. So, and your company recognizes that problem. Yeah, yeah, and I agree with that. So, sir, I just wanted to make that point. No, no, I don't mean to cut off a good debate going back and forth. I'm just, you know, as I sit here and listen to you two go back and forth, I go, okay, so we get a new premier in October, okay?

And let's say it is Daniel Smith, and she has championed the Alberta Sovereignty Act. I don't think listening you to, it's as easy as day one, the Alberta Sovereignty Act is in effect. Or am I wrong in saying that? after listening to you to go back and forth, I highly doubt the more people you add into this, the more difficult and more heated a conversation could become on trying to flush out all the different ideas that this thing is talking about.

Alberta Provincial Police Force, Independent Banking, revenue agency, pension plan, you know, like it goes on and on and on. There's lots. And at times we go deep and at times we're just scraping the surface of going back and forth to you two. Would you agree that whoever comes into power, if it is Daniel Smith, day one, it isn't like all sudden all the law has changed in Alberta? What Derek said at the beginning is, I think gives the comfort of saying, hey, look, it's a policy and it's not final. And I think the policy itself says, hey, it's subject to debate.

It's subject to a vote. It's subject to all these things. And so I think the, I think the, you know, as Derek said, you know, let's not just jump to the conclusion. that the statute's going to be the same as the policy is drafted. Yeah, that's right. Okay, so then I want to go back in the conversation earlier. We talked about Quebec strategy, but then I didn't hear what it was. What does Quebec do that's so good?

And if you're Alberta and you could adopt it immediately, what would it be? What is it? Yeah, so here's what I'd say that I've learned from a long time there, is that Quebec in particular is a very political culture. it has since 1763 been very focused on maintaining political power to protect itself from what it perceives to be an island of English who's out to get them, right, or to persecute them. And they would, you know, they probably would put it almost in those exact words, although I probably embellished a bit. Whereas I find Alberta to be a mercantile culture or a business culture, mercantile, not mercantileist. I find Ontario to be mercantile-ist, which is to say we use business to accumulate it.

political power. And Alberta is like I say, we're like a bunch of, we're very business-oriented mercantile culture. And I say we're a little bit like the Napoleon talked about. We're a nation of shopkeepers. And most people in Alberta, we just want to get back to running our shops. I mean, Derek and I, I think, agree on 95% of what we talk about. It's just this issue of whether we're going to, whether we're going to follow court rulings or not, it's probably what we're arguing about. But what I would say is that because we have that business culture, not political culture, in the federation, we play a different game. We constantly go down to Ottawa and explain to them, like, you know, if you would just get out of our way and let us go back to our shops and make more money, it would be good for the whole country. GDP would go up.

People would be wealthier. And what we don't understand is if you're in a political culture like Quebec or a mercantilist culture like Ontario, what they hear you saying is, is we want more political power. It wouldn't even occur to them that Alberta would make more money and not use it for political to ends because that's what they do. And so what I guess what I'm really saying is, and I did it on this other podcast, you know, if we're playing rummy and they're playing euchre,

us getting better at playing rummy is not going to win at euchre. And I think what we have to do is learn to be political like Quebec, a bit more mercantilist like Ontario, and start using that to gain political power, to, in effect, for us to keep them out of our politics, but for them it's to get into our politics. And what I really mean by that is, where does power come from? Power, and I've done business all over the world,

Edward Shepard Nazi was a friend. I mean, so I had seen how power gets exercised in different cultures and different countries. And to me it really comes down to there's three things. And just to make it glib, guns, votes, and money. And so if, you know, if you look at pre-the-capitalist area in Europe, all the people who had all the money were the people of the guns. But with the invention of the company by the Dutch in 16-608 or whatever it was, the beginning of capitalism, we've now seen that powers devolved more to the money, like people with money tend to have influence over the people with the guns.

And, of course, votes still has lots of political power. and in Rome, that would have been the mob, throwing out an emperor today, it's us exercising your votes. So when I look at Canada, well, let's hope nobody's going to pull out their guns. So let's put that to the side. And so you're now down to votes and money. Now, Alberta in particular, as we know, has less votes. Certainly the West entirely has less votes in Ontario and Quebec combined. The West does have more votes in Quebec, by the way.

People seem to forget that part. But we don't have more than Ontario combined. But here's what we do have. we have an incredible ability to generate wealth and we do not use that wealth for political power. Quebec does and I'll just tell you things that I know. Quebec has, and so you'll just have to take my word for this from people that I feel very reliably.

Quebec, first of all its own pension funds, controls all of its own money, even though it isn't a great place to generate wealth. They control their money and they have threatened explicitly or implicitly at certain times to take all of their money out of the Canadian financial institution, which would be very harmful to the banks, very harmful to investment funds,

be very harmful to a lot of things. But they're willing to use their money, even though they generate less of it than Alberta, they're willing to use that money for political purposes. And we all look, oh, they had a referendum vote, but they took a long time before they did that. They first built their institutions to manage their own. pensions effectively to matter that they police themselves they collect their own

revenues they they they they they have so so I would say is they built the institutions to show they could govern themselves and then they have used votes and money to exercise political power in the Federation if you look at Alberta what we do is we send our money down to Ottawa and let them manage it for us so here's the irony can you imagine this right in the camp the Alberta that can't just the Canada pension plan $700 billion under management. On an actuarial basis,

$400 billion belongs to all burdens. Right? 12% of the country, we have more than 50%. But let's talk about the power of, hey, I'm deciding where that money gets invested. I'm deciding who earns a banking fee. I'm deciding who, you know, who's going to earn a sales fee or whatever,

broker's fees, all those things. Well, if you're the RBC Dominion Securities, you go to Ottawa to ask them, you know, could you invest or could I get a fee, could I get whatever, on Alberta's money. So Ottawa is exercising

the political power that comes from being able to generate money. And in the modern capitalist world, money's the big power today. And it's because of capitalism. That's the way it is, right? So that's the way things are. And we need to say, I think in Alberta's start realizing that's our one big power.

And here's some things people don't know. Alberta's been running about a $3 billion trade deficit with Quebec. If you take oil and gas out, it's closer to five for decades. Whatever happens, the customer is always right. So I don't say, so I think that, you know, in terms of this type of things that Quebec does, Alberta, and by the way, I've been through, I've been through two BAP hearings personally, which is this environment commission in Quebec, where it's, you know, where they'll put projects and you know to to kill them for political reasons if they want to right

and and and our project didn't fail about but the sag in the lNG project did and it got killed you know for that as an excuse well if quebec says i'm blocking your lNG and your gas and your pipelines for you know environmental ESG environmental social governance for ESG reasons well why does alberta review every product and every company and every service that we buy from Quebec for for for ESG as well like do we think that what tell me what the gender impacts are of bombardier jets tell me what the full cycle emissions are of bombardier jets like like like like like why don't we go through the same thing for your products as you make us go through for our products in Quebec and by way there's something that is so foreign business minded mercantile culture

so you're telling me I might have to pay two percent more for my jet why would I ever do that well I'll tell you why because it's a because it's a sort of a pennywise pound foolish you save two percent but you lose your ability to get your product to market well as we come up here on time Derek uh you know any thoughts uh on on just on what michael said about how quebec operates anything there um you know before we we uh we end uh on i don't know on a few different thoughts here but uh derrick if you if you got some final thoughts please fire away i certainly would endorse, personally endorse, any plan that works. I think that's what it comes down to. If what Michael is proposing is a completely different species, and I'm not convinced that

the Free Alberta Strategy and what he is saying are exclusively each other, I would thoroughly endorse that because I think Alberta is an in-intractable position. It's becoming intolerable to have a confederation function as it currently is. And that doesn't mean that that's an attack on confederation as some of the candidates like to think it's that we can do better and so i i think um i think by the way dick i agree with that when i first saw the plan i said hey 90% of that works with what i'm saying is that let's get tough on trade and start using our you're so i do i do have i'm just thinking of three comments on on that and that was you know this is the type of thing that i'm sure uh daniel smith should she become premier is going to want to hear from you and your wealth of experience

and your ideas. It's going to be an open door because she's going to want to hear from people because the last thing anyone wants to do when they step in is damage Alberta. But Ted Befield in 2001, 2001 said, and I'm sorry, I have to read this off the screen. My eyes are going to look a little weird here.

The only way to change Canada is to develop ways of getting out of Canada. We must possess other options. Unless we make credible threats to set up on our own, we will get absolutely nothing in the way of constitutional change or any other kind of change. I agree with that. We will be bashed down every time.

1,000%. That's why we have to do what Quebec did. We need to build the institutions to manage our own money, to police ourselves, to collect their own revenue, all of which is in your free Alberta strategy, which is absolutely necessary. You know what? The people in Ontario, by the way, it's so frustrating. They laugh at me when I talk about the strategy. Alberta will never do that.

You guys will never do that. They just don't take us seriously. Well, I think I remember a prime minister famously saying, just watch me. Maybe we should take that sort of attitude. But the other reason is because we're a little bit like a teenager saying we're going to move out of the house. And then the mom and dad goes, yeah, but I got all your money. Yeah, yeah.

And so, yeah, we need to control that. But so I want to just address what I've harped on this a little bit through this discussion today, which has been excellent. I want to that we need to actually have something credible that we can do and that there's certain things that we know that will not work. And flawed as it may appear to some, the Free Alberta Strategy, and particularly the Sovereignty Act, is an attempt to doing exactly what Byfield said.

We need to have a credible threat or else we're not getting anywhere. Election night, federal election night, the elections decided for the most part by the time it gets to Manitoba, as you've pointed out, Michael. But I want to point out that Taves has brought forth a strategy in response to the Sovereignty Act, which is just to willy-nilly slap tariffs on products coming in and contracts, goods, all sorts. And if you want to talk about constitutionality, I spent seven years of my life on the way to the Supreme Court in the RV Como case. And we were discussing or addressing Section 121 of the Constitution about interprovincial trade, admitted free.

was the big thing. And what we do know from 150 years of constitutional discussion is that Tave's plan is offside the Constitution. Well, yeah, just, but, okay, so first of all, I think it's absolutely black and white clear based on Supreme Court decisions that you cannot. Absolutely black and white clear. You cannot put a financial tariff on. But when I heard Taze talk, I thought he was talking about the possibility of non-tariff barriers as well. No, he uses the word tariff. He's either misused the term or he or he doesn't understand the law.

It sounded, it's fair to him. It sounded like a policy he came up or his campaign team came up with on the fly without actually thinking it through thoroughly, which is problematic as well. But then the other thing is we have another campaign talking about opening constitutions with the federal government. Now, I am old enough to remember Charlottetown and Meach Lake and all the heartache and what actually was accomplished from those constitutional negotiations and there is no provision in the constitution that allows someone to send notice to the federal government and say you know what we're opening the constitution i i don't know what that means um it's never happened before and it's yeah okay so first of all that's that's that's

doing an extension of the precedent of the quebec secession reference it is and i think i think and i think Ted Morton's points there have merit and of course at the other day we'll find maybe one day we'll find it if a court agrees or not. It's a misreading of the court's decision and they always think it's paragraph 69 where it's

obligation of the rest of the rest of the federal government the rest of Canada will be to acknowledge acknowledge Alberta's discontent and then that's it. Right. I hear you think just getting back to the league what does Quebec do differently? They

actively look for loopholes too. Yeah. Right. Like they don't just like as you said, hey, this this 91 to 95 it was iron clad. But then over 100 years people find this loophole and that loophole and this surprise judgment and sort of over. They actively look for those. And that's another thing

I find that Albertans don't have again in our business mercantile culture. We're trying to avoid contractual disputes. We're trying to be reasonable. We're not trying to. And I think we have to learn maybe to start looking for the loopholes ourselves. And one is just on the TAVE's idea. which I which you know if he strictly means a financial tariff then you then of course you're right

but if he means tariffs in the broader sense of non-tariff barriers too then um non-financial tariff barriers too then I think there's the loophole that Quebec has found actually actually no why don't why don't and I think the answer is that we do we do ESG we do an ESG trade barrier and we put those those those those Alberta is signatory both to the Canada free trade agreement and to Northwest Partnership Agreement. And I actually had the opportunity to litigate through both of those regarding one of Joe Cic's, our former Billy Fios Minister of Finance at the time, and had one of his illegal policies, which was a tax and rebate scheme regarding beer.

It was struck down by the trade agreement. And so it's not just merely financial penalties. It can be slightly more convoluted. It can be explicitly like it can be as simple as differential. grading between products. Anything that has the purpose of keeping a product or a service or a contract or eligibility out of the province, if that's the purpose, the primary purpose of it, then it's offside the Constitution and the trade agreements.

Right. But we just had the Pog case, which said that if there's a climate emergency, then there's exceptions to that. And we just had the beer case in New Brunswick, which says if there's a social reason, there's exceptions to that. And I've also looked at the Canadian pre-trade agreement. And, you know, what the penalty is if you're caught off, first of all, there's never been one complaint ever done under it. And second ball, even if you do, the penalty gets paid to some, it gets paid to some.

Actually, our success was technically under the Canada Free Trade Agreement. Okay. I don't know. I don't know about government that's done that. And maybe you can help me. But getting back to, though, the idea of what Quebec does, these non-terrap barriers that are done for language, culture, environment, all these other reasons. Supreme Court's shown both in the Paul case and the beer case that they're very supportive of the idea that if it's done for those reasons It's it's an exception to free movement of goods

Well, why doesn't Alberta do why don't we do an ESG review too like I'd like to call out Quebec is the biggest greenwashers in the world and make them meet Alberta ESG standards and so we're gonna do is we're just not gonna do business with you until you can meet Alberta ESG standards Yeah, essentially I think I've not to use too many political jargon talking points, but this really reminds me of what Daniel Smith has been saying that it's time for Alberta to grow up and no longer be a teenager, as you said, and start acting like a senior partner in Confederation. Yes. We have weight to throw around. Let's start throwing it around. So, you know, boys, I could probably hold you here the rest of the day and sit here and just listen us. And honestly, I got no problem with it. I just want to be respectful of your guys' time.

Can we maybe all agree, and maybe I'm wrong on this, that one of the best things then that has come from the Alberta Sovereignty Act is people are actually listening and talking and hopefully starting to debate more on the merits of it and things that Albertans need to do. I mean, I go back to what Todd Lowen said on stage in Vermillion about the firewall letter in 2001. It's not like this is a new idea. Actually, it's been around for a very long time. can we all agree that hopefully Alberta is going to maybe to use both your terms grow up a little bit move out of the parents house start acting for itself and start to move in the direction of maybe some of the things Quebec has done right and take whether it's you know a year away or whatever the time frame is I don't know but start to pull some of the things back that allow them to have a little more influence in the country is that a fair enough statement yeah and you know what I have to

tell you, I think that every leadership candidate, maybe I'll, maybe I should say the five out of seven who have read all their stuff, they have all come up with us a plan to get tough for Alberta. And I think we can give Daniel some credit for being a catalyst for that. And I agree that the discussion is good to say, hey, it's time for us to grow up. I like 90% of what I see in the free Alberta strategy, the part of it that we're not going to, that we're going to, you know, no longer, we're going to decide to opt in or out of court rulings, I find goes far too far for me. But the rest of it is great.

And I think that if we add it to get tough on trade strategy to that, I think we're moving in the right direction. But I think this whole idea that, you know, growing up means let's, let's find ways to, you know, obey the Constitution because it's our fundamental protection against government overreach, ultimately. That's obey the Constitution. We don't like it. Let's force a change.

even your document for the Alberta strategy basically says if we can't force a change ultimately in the Constitution we might have to separate so so even you at that sense are saying we're going to open up the Constitution at some point and I agree that's what we have to do so but I think growing up is I'm going to say growing up I think is we don't ignore our courts we do follow we do follow constitutions we understand that they can change we use our political we we develop the institutions to manage our own money to manage our our own cells so that we actually start to say, hey, we're grown-ups. Then we start to show that we're willing to throw our political power around.

Maybe we take our money out of Canada. Maybe we stop buying $10 billion a year of stuff from Quebec. Maybe we do things like that. They start to see we're willing, A, we've grown up, B, we've got the institutions. C, we're willing to throw our weight around if we can't. Then I think, and if that doesn't work, then I'm with Derek. Then it probably comes down to a referendum. but not a declaration by the legislature,

an actual referendum that we go to the people and say that we want to go for autonomy. Okay, well, final point to you, Derek, and then I just appreciate once again you guys hopping on and doing this and being open, you know, to me sitting here almost as a fly on the wall, I like to think, because I didn't really interject a whole lot.

I just let you guys kind of rift on, you know, Derek, the guy who's in the band. You know, that's kind of what this, to me, feels like. sitting back and letting two guys passionate about a lot of different things, namely Alberta, and the best way forward. Regardless, Derek, any final thoughts here before I let you two get on with your day? Well, I'm really actually quite hopeful that this new leadership candidate who is selected

in a few weeks will do something important to advance Alberta's place in Confederation because I think at the end of the day, the free Alberta strategy, and Sovereignty Act being one component of it, is an attempt to protect Albertans from what I view as a lawless federal government, a federal government that's just going to do whatever it wants to us and feels like it can always rely on the courts to get what it wants. That concerns me. It concerns me as I see the trajectory of that. And whichever political candidate is elected, of course, I do favor one, I do favor Danielle Smith.

And I think it's very important that we have somebody who has displayed a willingness to stand up against Ottawa. And quite frankly, I think the polling on this now shows that some polls are showing as low as 64%, but many are higher than that of Albertans within the UCP party actually support the concept of a sovereignty act. And I think it's important to say the concept of a sovereignty act, because as we've discussed that link, There is no actual written document. And I think it displays the willingness of conservatives in Alberta to say, you know what, it's time that we stood up to Ottawa in a meaningful way. And here we have an actionable plan. Other people can come up with their actionable plans as well.

And certainly the door, I don't think, will be closed in the Premier's office for other input and advice. And we may actually have a leader in this province who wants to take this portfolio seriously. And that's extremely encouraging to me. Well, either way, fellas, I appreciate you coming on and doing this and being open to it and sharing some thoughts and your knowledge because you both come with wealth and knowledge to not only myself, but all the listeners who are tuning in. And I just appreciate you guys doing this and all the best here in the days to come. And like I say, like we pointed out, here in the next, what is it, less than a month, a few weeks away.

We're going to have a new premier. And we're going to find out what's, what's going to find out what's, going to happen and hopefully, you know, some of these ideas continue to get flushed out as we move along. Either way, thanks guys for hopping on. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having us. And by the way, I've been wanting to meet Derek for a while, so thanks for setting that up as well. Well, there you go. Okay. Thanks, guys. Bye-bye. Bye.