About 6,000 people tuned in online for a livestream of The Courage to Listen, a sovereignty town hall held June 25 in Calgary, which was heavy on rhetoric and praise for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
Judging by the responses of the physical audience viewed on the livestream and the approximately 350 people who attended a similar event at the C2 Centre in Bonnyville on June 23, few present were visibly undecided on the issue of Alberta secession.
The event was hosted by the Calgary-Lougheed UCP Constituency Association and sponsored by seven others including Calgary-Acadia, Calgary-South East, Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, Grande Prairie-Wapiti, Highwood, Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin, and Airdrie East. The speakers included academics, authors, and think tank researchers, as well as organizers from the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP).
'The system could not be fixed'
“The problem is that while the West wants in, the East does not want us in. That is the problem, the reality that we have to face. Therefore, in my view, Alberta only has two options, the status quo or independence,” said Dr. Michael Wagner, an Edmonton based political scientist and author of Canada Can Not Be Fixed, before launching into a breakneck-paced review of the last 50 years of Alberta’s grievances with Ottawa.
Those grievances being the oil export tax in 1973, National Energy Program in 1980, and the failure of first the Reform Party and later the Harper Conservatives to achieve meaningful changes to the composition of either the Senate or the House of Commons.
“Stephen Harper, a man who was committed to constitutional reform to benefit the West, became prime minister, and over a period of years used every tool at his disposal to reform the Senate, but he could not prevail in the face of intense opposition from central Canada. If Stephen Harper could not reform the Senate, then it cannot be done. … Albertans must realize we sent our best people to Ottawa to fix the system, but the system could not be fixed,” said Wagner.
'Render Canada dysfunctional'
Ben Trudeau, first cousin 13 times removed from the infamous Pierre Elliott Trudeau and long-time political staffer turned lobbyist, spoke at length about the Québec referendums and the impact their failure had on the political culture of la belle province.
“A huge difference between Quebec politicians and Alberta politicians, is that Alberta politicians often ask the permission. ‘Can we do that?’ In Québec, they do it, and if you're not happy sue us. There's the difference. In Alberta, they comply with regulation and then they fight in court, and they hope they win,” said Trudeau.
According to Trudeau, after the territories, the biggest recipients of equalization payments is not Québec but the Maritime provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.
Image Credit: Government of Canada
“In Canada to change the constitution is a 7-50 principle: seven provinces representing 50 per cent of the population. Do you think that these three provinces will ever vote to get rid of that?” said Trudeau.
He said to get a better deal with Ottawa, it’s not a referendum, court decision, or constitutional challenge which is needed, but a majority government in the provincial legislature.
“We can render Canada so dysfunctional that they will have . . . they will beg to come sit at our table to negotiate a new deal,” said Trudeau.
Banking structure 'was designed to collapse'
The next speaker was Matt Ehret, the founder of The Canadian Patriot Review, whose website features posts calling the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre a hoax and promoting an eight-episode docu-series whose most recent episode explores “how CIA psyops and cult programming weaponized alien mythology to rewrite religious history.”
According to Ehret, Maurice Strong, the deceased Canadian businessman and diplomat who served in senior roles at the United Nations, forced a policy change “designed to transform our world from being industrial, productive, based on the idea that there is morality in work … into the idea of becoming a consumer society cult that would live for the moment without thinking of the past or the future, and that would always be based upon the idea of speculating, increasingly, to make money with non-existent assets.”
Ehret said an economic collapse has been built into the current banking system by Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“It was designed to collapse. It's doing exactly what it was supposed to do, by destroying industry, by destroying the productive economy,” said Ehret.
'Flat-out communism'
CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project Mitch Sylvestre spoke at both the Bonnyville and Calgary events. He called the secession referendum “the most important, most critical political decision we’ll ever make.”
According to Sylvestre, if Alberta leaves residents will still receive their pensions and retain their Canadian passports.
He said the Government of Canada is working against Alberta.
“In his book, Values, our new prime minister said that Western society is morally rotten, and it has been corrupted by capitalism, which has brought about a climate emergency; and this he claims requires rigid controls on personal freedom, industry and corporate funding … That's flat-out communism. That's what that is,” said Sylvestre.
According to Sylvestre, a strong independence movement threatening national unity is necessary in order to give Premier Smith a stick to shake at Ottawa.
Taxpayers Federation brings the numbers
Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation Kris Sims said she understood “the frustration of feeling like we aren’t being listened to,” and that she’s a big fan of Premier Danielle Smith. Sims spoke about the province’s fiscal outlook and the $3 billion spent annually on interest for the $82 billion debt.
“And before you start thinking, ‘Oh that must have been just during the NDP times of Rachel Notley’, I'm sorry, no that's not true. Because they doubled program spending between 2004 and 2015. And that was a PC government,” said Sims, who says spending increases should be capped at population growth plus inflation.
She likened Alberta sovereignty to a divorce and asked about how long the legal battle would go for and at what cost.
“We have to keep in mind, also, there are entire departments that cost money. How much would Alberta’s National Defense cost? … and then also comes the question of debt,” said Sims, noting the interest payments alone on the national debt are approximately $1 billion per week.
Canada 'not the true north strong and free'
Queen’s Law professor Bruce Pardy said if the foundational idea of the United States of America is liberty, Canada’s is deference to authority and grift.
“It’s not the true north strong and free, it’s a cartel held together by bribes,” said Pardy.
He argued the best way for Canada to be saved would be for Alberta to leave.
“Only in the face of an existential political earthquake is there any chance that Canada will face its own problems. … Your biggest danger Alberta, in becoming an independent country is this that you will keep the system that you are trying to escape,” said Pardy.
“Alberta could be the new America. Now by that, I do not mean necessarily that you will join the Americans. What I mean is you could be the new America. You could be the 21st Century America. In 2025, Alberta is in the same kind of situation that the Americans were in at the time of the revolution: a hinterland being pushed around, its riches taken for the benefit of the established order, far away, a lack of representation at the center an abusive relationship,” said Pardy.
'Confederation isn’t fair'
Peter McCaffrey, president of the Alberta Institute, a Calgary based think tank focused on Alberta issues spoke both about how people who could never support separation and people who could never be reconciled to Canada are being irrational.
“I won't go through the full list of inequalities because you probably know many of them, and some of the speakers tonight have covered them too, but suffice it to say that Confederation isn't fair,” said McCaffrey.
He said he thinks what Alberta wants is fairness, and whether a person is for or against separation, they should be working towards a better deal for Alberta.
“If you're right that Ottawa will never compromise and will never actually let us get fairness, then the more we try to fix things, the more Ottawa will say no, and the more that people who are still thinking the problem can be fixed are likely to realize that it can't,” said McCaffrey.
'Alberta is much better off outside of Canada'
The evening ended with a speech by Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer from the Foothills area who specializes in “suing governments,” and is the legal counsel for the Alberta Prosperity Project. Rath also spoke at the Bonnyville event.
According to Rath, the APP is in the process of finalizing a “fully costed draft fiscal plan for an independent Alberta” which he said includes three times as much money for First Nations communities as what Ottawa currently spends.
“If it's possible, I think Ottawa hates Indigenous people more than they hate Albertans. If you've been to any communities in northern Alberta and have experienced the abject poverty that Ottawa has kept those people in,” said Rath.
He spoke about the unequal distribution of Senate seats. Senators are appointed by the Prime Minister. There are 105 seats in the upper chamber: 24 each for Québec and Ontario, 10 each for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, six each for Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador, four seats for Prince Edward Island, and one each for Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
“Supreme Court seats - Ontario has three. Quebec has three. The Maritimes have one. And all of the West: Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia have two seats. So is it any wonder that any time we go up to the Supreme Court on a division of powers issue. Surprise, surprise, the Supreme Court of Canada rules against Alberta,” said Rath.
He describes Alberta as a colony for Eastern Canada, and Mark Carney as an existential threat to Alberta because of his support for electric vehicles and the time spent as an informal advisor to Justin Trudeau during the COVID pandemic.
“A really simple way forward to get us out of the fascist hell that Mark Carney has planned for us, that World Economic Forum has planned for us, and that is simply for all of us to unite around one simple idea that Alberta is much better off outside of Canada as an independent country,” said Rath.
