Video Transcript:

(00:00) this podcast is brought to you by Revel News that’s right so if you want to support us why not do it in a winwin fashion by shopping for yourself one of my favorite things to do head to rebelnewstore.com to pick the patriotic gear that pleases your heart and while you’re there use coupon code drea 10 to save while you do hello my friends big talk with Jeffrey Wrath one of the leaders of the Alberta Separatist Movement i’m going to try and ask him my toughest questions to smoke out his answers to controversies and I don’t
(00:35) know I hope you uh find it interesting whether or not you’re from Alberta it would obviously affect the entire country also want to show you a couple new videos from Mark Carney including an astonishing one about him and American Strawberries you got to see this one um anyways before I go let me invite you to become a subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus that’s the video version of this podcast i want to show you those videos of Mark Carney in particular so make sure you’ve got the video version of our podcast go to
(01:03) rebelnewsplus.com click subscribe it’s eight bucks a month and not only do you get great video but you support Rebel News because we don’t take any government money and it shows you’re listening to Rebel News [Music] podcast tonight would a Mark Carney win cause Alberta to separate well Preston Manning thinks so and so does our guest today it’s April 4th and this is the Ezra Levant Show fighting for freedom shame on you you sensorious thug [Music] we’ve got a long interview for you today that I just recorded with Jeffrey Wrath
(01:57) who’s really one of the leaders behind the Alberta separatist movement it’s a long interview and I I push back on Jeffrey who I very much like on a few questions i think that it’s important that he be challenged because he’s contemplating the gravest decision for Alberta to make i like the guy i call him a troublemaker and I guess troublemaker can spot troublemaker but I think Rebel News’s position on Alberta separatism is first of all to try and fix the underlying grievances and second of all if those grievances cannot be fixed to be a fair
(02:33) reporter of what happens out there and not to simply demonize people who want to replace their Canadian citizenship with something else there’s a difference in in this country quebec and Ontario have a different attachment to Canada than do Albertans part of that is for historical reasons how the West was built and born in Canada part of it is that for some reason the Liberal Party just loves beating up Alberta for pleasure and cash and unfortunately too many provincial premers like Ontario and Quebec do too i
(03:05) ask you remember a couple months ago when all these politicians all these premers were saying “We’re going to remove provincial trade barriers?” Yeah you didn’t not a single one because of course that would mean allowing Alberta oil to flow through sacred Quebec territory and that can’t be allowed anyways I’ll get to that interview in a moment i just want to show you two quick videos from Mark Carney here’s one that’s just amazing and you know you can brief a guy you can give a guy you know suggested talking points on a hundred
(03:38) things but unless he’s got natural instincts you can’t prepare him for literally any questions like this one from French Radio Canada will you stop eating American strawberries take a look at this okay bizarre doesn’t do you will you continue to buy American strawberries oh no i don’t buy anything my servants do that so fingers crossed technically I don’t buy American strawberries my people do i have people to do that what an astonishingly
(04:41) tonedeaf answer and there’s a trickiness to it also it’s not do you hand the credit card over do you pay the cash it’s will you consume it and and that trickiness that loophole nature there’s an essential dishonesty to the guy really weird i don’t know here’s another Mark Carney clip just take a look at this i told the president that I will be working hard for the next month to earn the right to represent Canada in those discussions to get the best deal for Canada under the new US approach at the same time Canada must be looking elsewhere to
(05:19) expand our trade to build our economy and to protect our sovereignty canada is ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of like-minded countries who share our values we believe in international cooperation we believe in the free and open exchange of goods services and ideas and if the United States no longer wants to lead Canada will but but what he said there is not true canada is not for the open exchange of goods and services and ideas first of all Canada is very sensorious and Canada does not believe
(05:57) in the free trade of oil and gas and coal and anything with carbon in it mark Carney himself has led the charge against that we do not believe in free trade for dairy or poultry and that’s mainly to protect Quebec we don’t allow American banks to compete with Canadian banks to give us better service we don’t allow American cell phone companies to compete with Bell and Rogers and the other atrocious cell phone carriers who have given Canada the highest priced data packages in the world is Canada really going to lead if you look at the
(06:31) stats we actually have the lowest most sluggish economy in the G7 we’re actually in a recession um on a per capita basis that is on a per capita basis Canadians are getting poorer it’s only because Trudeau has brought in so many millions of foreigners that the gross number continues to grow i think it’s a bit of a joke to suggest Canada will lead and expand trade elsewhere with our allies really it was the Liberal government that said “No there’s no business case for selling LNG to Japan or Germany.
(07:03) ” So those countries have gone ahead and inked massive deals with our competitors like Qar yeah sorry i I simply don’t believe that the Liberals know how to build or lead anything all right i wanted to show you those two clips of Mark Carney but now to our feature interview with Jeffrey Wrath take a [Music] look i tell you Western Canada should be scared of Mark Carney or frankly anyone who believes in capitalism and developing the natural resources of our country it would be insane not to develop our resources but that has been
(07:46) the ideology of Justin Trudeau and I have argued that Mark Carney is Trudeau 2.0 but just like in the Terminator movies where the subsequent Terminators were stronger faster more bulletproof that’s what I think about Mark Carney he works harder than Trudeau he’s smarter than Trudeau he’s moreorked than Trudeau he’s m a much more serious man than Trudeau he’s not obsessed with photo ops and and being silly he’s actually deadly serious and his central focus has been his job not just his job making money with Brookfield but his job as the
(08:23) co-chair of something called Gans the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero which is another way of saying keep the oil sands in the ground um I think I I I think it’s actually an existential threat to the prosperity of the West and Danielle Smith who I think has been doing a great job trying to tamp down Donald Trump’s tariff threat said something just astonishing the other day and she said it in such a mildbed way i showed the clip to you last week but I want to show it one more time here’s Danielle Smith talking about what could
(08:57) happen if Mark Carney wins with his commitment to keep the oil in the ground to bar any new pipelines or shipping listen one more time to what Danielle Smith said take a look i got a mandate to try to fix Canada i got a a mandate to try to make Canada work and that’s what I’ve been working for towards relentlessly over these last two and a half years as you know we we we did put in place a process for citizen initiated referenda and I I leave it to to Albertans who may feel differently to to put forward um a petition campaign but I
(09:31) I think my job as as an Albertan is and as a Canadian is to is to try to put on the table the issues that are causing grave tension in our federation and to solve them and I’m going to look at it on the positive side because what I have observed is that it may be that the current prime minister doesn’t get it but all of the other premers do and we have consistently for the last number of meetings signed on to uh a communic case talking about how we’re going to build economic corridors this last one economic corridors with oil and gas and
(10:02) transmission lines rail lines um and uh and new highways and uh and other infrastructure in those corridors and so I believe there’s goodwill on the part of the other premers the problem is unless we solve those federal uh barriers we’re not it’s just words on paper so I’m going to continue to use sort of that newfound sense of a spree decor uh with my fellow premers we’re going to do what we can after the election to make sure that we address those issues and I’ll keep an open mind um but I’m so far I’m I’m dissatisfied
(10:34) with what I’m with what I’m hearing out of the the new prime minister he doesn’t seem to he doesn’t seem to understand just how foundational these are if we’re going to reset the relationship uh that’s not actually the clip I had in mind that’s a very interesting clip though because it shows that Danielle Smith believes that the other premers are her allies i think that’s probably true in the case of Saskatchewan Premier uh Scott Mo um but it is definitely not the case the premier of Ontario Doug Ford who has suggested that export taxes
(11:01) be put on Alberta energy and France LGO the premier of Quebec who has said that uh no pipelines are passing through his province so all the talk about stopping interprovincial trade barriers all this team Canada talk it’s just a ruse it’s just a temporary fad the rest of the premers resent Alberta for its wealth and if they have any opinion on it they want that wealth through equalization that was an interesting clip and I’m glad we showed it but let me show the clip that really I think I want to spend some time
(11:31) discussing and it’s in response to criticism uh that she’s standing up for Alberta too much i want to show you when she says Canada has to start working for Alberta and it’s not right now so that that that first clip we showed was was interesting i think she’s being too generous to her fellow premers who look at Alberta as a milk cow um but take a look at her there’s a bit of an or else starting to form take a look at this what would you say to those who criticize you for sort of entertaining the idea of of Alberta independence as
(12:08) Canada faces a trade war and and threats of annexation from the US well I I love Canada and I want Canada to work i’ve been on team Canada from the beginning it’s part of the reason why I’ve been relentlessly going to the United States and trying to advocate for all of our industries for all of Canada in every venue I possibly can but uh I’m also premier of Alberta and quite frankly um at some point Canada has to start working for Alberta and it’s not right now we have a a number of policies that came in over the last 10 years that have
(12:40) been damaging to Alberta prosperity it’s been damaging to our freedom as a province and if they persist it is going to continue a dysfunctional relationship that harms Alberta so I put forward the the nine major policies that I think have to be repealed after the next election um unfortunately the current prime minister despite what he said to me privately when he was here has now gone public saying he supports export taxes he supports Bill C69 he supports emissions caps that is moving in the wrong direction so we will uh get
(13:10) through this election we’ll see who ends up winning and I will continue to advocate for those um and that’s part of the reason why I will do a what a what’s next panel did that when the uh the when my predecessor came in to hear some of the concerns that Albertans had about how to repair the relationship with Canada at that time and it’s it’ll be time for us to do it again well that’s very interesting i’ll get to that panel in a second but I just thought it was incredible at some point Canada has to start working for Alberta and it’s not
(13:37) right now she talked about a what’s next panel and I saw an essay in the Globe and Mail by Preston Manning the former leader of the Reform Party in the Canadian Alliance the son of Ernest Manning the longtime Alberta premier i remember when Preston Manning first got going in the 90s i was a kid i was excited about it it’s actually the late um 80s i was a teenager and here’s this guy who said “No Albertans don’t separate let’s reform the Confederation the West wants in.
(14:06) ” Because the separatists of course have been saying the west wants out well let me contrast Preston Manning in the late 80s and early 90s with his the West wants in nationalism with Preston Manning in 2025 i’m looking at an article published in the Globe and Mail a couple days ago called Mark Carney poses a threat to national unity and I’m only going to read to you the last two paragraphs of this because it’ll just show what a transformation Preston Manning himself has gone through remember 30 years ago Preston Manning 40 years ago Preston
(14:38) Manning really stopped Western separatism here’s how he’s talking today if the liberals employing the fear of US President Donald Trump to secure the support of easily frightened voters should be returned to office then the agenda of the conference he was talking about a where to go next conference should be to consider ways and means of peacefully seceding the next prime minister of Canada if it remains Mark Carney would then be identified in the history books tragically and needlessly as the last prime minister of
(15:18) a United Canada you know I got to tell you I used to work for Preston Manning i’m talking 30 years ago now 20 something years ago he’s frankly a moderate he’s not a radical his his purpose was to unify Canada to fix Canada to moderate Canada he he really was a nationalist the West wants in and now he is saying if Mark Carney is reelected get ready for peaceful secession joining us now to talk about that possibility is Jeffrey Wrath a lawyer activist and a teeny tiny bit of a troublemaker who joins us now live
(16:00) from the Alberta District of Foothills one of the best places in the world jeffrey welcome back to the show and I remember when you spoke at our Rebel News Live conference in Calgary you were one of the hit speakers you’ve recently expressed yourself that the future for Alberta is becoming as Donald Trump would say a cherished 51st state where are you now do you think Alberta should stick in Canada be separate but independent join America is it possible to fix Canada give me your thoughts on things because I know you’re right there
(16:36) on the leading edge of this well I’m 100% in favor of Alberta statehood when I say statehood I’m speaking as a political scientist and what that means is a free and independent country that we’re going to call the Commonwealth of Alberta separate and apart and independent from Canada so that’s what we’re advocating i mean the benefits of that are are are manifold no more federal income tax no more carbon tax no more excise tax no more capital gains tax no more $70 billion a year going to Ottawa uh to only get ostensively $30
(17:10) billion in services back from you know from Ottawa well you know we continue to fund goldplated social services programs in Quebec that Albertans can only dream of i mean the day Alberta declares independence the fuel prices for everybody in this province will be cut in half we’ll go from a buck 60 a liter to 80 cents a liter i mean that’s enough to get you know a a good number of my fellow Albertans voting on that basis alone let alone thinking about if you’re a police officer a fireman you know nurse um uh a teacher you know whatever
(17:42) you know making you know making a decent middle class living $100,000 a year where you pay you know 3540% in federal income tax all of a sudden you don’t have to pay federal income tax anymore so instead of having take-home pay of 50 or 60,000 a year your take-home pay jumps up to 80 or 90,000 a year i mean that’s the that’s the future we’re talking about for Alberta and I mean what I I challenge all of these people that say “Oh how can you talk about leaving Canada and this is nonsense your fellow Albertans aren’t going to come
(18:12) along with you you know etc etc.” Well we’re at 40% in the polls now without taking the time to fully educate our fellow Albertans or we’re taking the time but without our fellow Albertans fully internalizing the benefits of Alberta independence i mean the day Alberta becomes independent we become the country in the world with the highest GDP per capita right so you know certainly the benefits of Alberta independence are manifold i would challenge anybody to list off five benefits to Albertans of remaining in
(18:43) Canada that uh would exceed the value of the benefits that I just listed for leaving Canada and you know the other thing that I’m involved in obviously is our delegation to Washington we’re in contact with the US administration at this point in time um I’m advised by contacts we have in the United States that our correspondence um has literally uh landed on the president’s desk and is being reviewed at the highest level in the United States favorably and with much interest um you know obviously for the United States a free and independent
(19:13) Alberta with strong economic ties to the United States um you know that embraces President Trump’s um policy of reciprocal tariffs where if we have zero tariffs on the Alberta side of the border they’ll have zero tariffs on the US side of the border a negotiated open border with the United States um you know much more robust economic union that the Americans can count on security of supply of Alberta oil and gas without people like um you know Mr carney imposing emissions caps production caps interfering with uh uh our ability to
(19:50) ship oil by rail to the United States like Trudeau did by changing the tanker specifications so that only Bergkshire Hathaway can supply um train cars for Alberta oil to move south i’d like to know what the deal is between Brook you know the the relationship is between Brookfield and Bergkshire Hathaway by the way but I’m sure some money somewhere but anyway I’ll I’ll let you jump in sorry thanks very much so I mean we recently did a poll we hired Leger which is a pretty mainstream pollster to test the appetite for becoming a 51st
(20:21) state and I know you’re talking now you mentioned an independent state um I think there’s two different conversations going on if I may one is a financial it’s like a it’s a quantitative conversation you’ve talked about some of that the ability to save money not ship money to other parts of Canada to have a stronger uh relationship with the US and Trump has talked about that too you know I think he’s alluded to exchanging the Canadian dollar at par uh there was a lot of finan it was it was like a checklist of
(20:56) benefits most of which you could quantify and others like military which you could I suppose quantify it too but on the other hand there’s a reaction and I I think it’s particularly strong in Ontario because remember Ontario a lot of people in Ontario they they are descended from people who left the United States after the revolutionary war they were called United Empire Loyalists they were folks who were fans of the king they didn’t like this George Washington upstart so they just moved to British North America
(21:31) and obviously that was more than 200 years ago but there still is a a strain of anti-Americanism and a strain of we’re different and so when you say break up Canada you’re not just talking about dollars and cents you’re talking about emotional ties patriotism loyalty the the king the queen um and those are all emotional things that you can’t sort of counter with financial things um is it a different people in Ontario don’t get a vote Ezra i mean I guess that’s the difference in our referendum so you know they can you
(22:08) know you can have all the Trump derangement syndrome you want in Ontario i mean I’m sure it goes hand inhand with their vaccination rates and the fact that they had such a huge uh amount of support for the the COVID Nazism that that a lot of Albertans thought was just completely uh out to lunch um you know I’m I myself am descended from a Lieutenant William Graves of the British Army who fought for the British during the Revolutionary War so you know I I mean I understand that i mean we’re not necessarily you know that that’s why we
(22:39) call our project the Commonwealth of Alberta Project i mean you know the an independent republic of Alberta we would imagine would remain a member of the Commonwealth we would certainly have continue to have congenial relationships with his majesty the king uh you know there’s no reason that any and all of those things wouldn’t be on the table you know we’re aware that our fellow Albertans share some of those sentiments but you know our feeling is and I saw your poll to be clear um the polling that we are looking at now has support
(23:07) for Alberta independence uh approaching the level that voted yes in the first Quebec referendum of 40.44% and again that’s without Albertans internalizing uh how much better off they’re going to be and their families are going to be from an economic perspective let alone from the perspective of being free from all of the childish arbitrary regulations that have been imposed on Albertans by Ottawa you know everything from all the stupid COVID regulations to Justin Trudeau you know seemingly every two or three months coming up with
(23:41) another list of firearms that he found too frightening to consider allowing people to continue to own you know all of those types of things you know like last like 40 days with you know within 40 days of him leaving office he came up with a list of firearms that he was going to confiscate and ship to the front front lines of the war in Ukraine that included people’s 22 caliber semi-automatic gopher rifles i mean it’s this level of stupidity that Albertans are fed up with i mean not 40 days ago we had Doug Ford thinking that he could
(24:11) cut off Alberta oil to the United States without understanding that Ontario’s oil comes up through from you know comes up from Line N through the United States yeah so I mean Albertans are just done with being governed by idiots who don’t even know where their goddamn oil comes from you know it’s my observation that different separatist movements around the world or independence movements around the world a lot of it comes down to men of history uh I look at the United Kingdom where Nigel Farage I think was the personification of the
(24:40) Brexit movement and that wasn’t to break up the UK but it was to break away the UK from the European Union and I think his relentless campaigning um it really I think he was a man of consequence and he made it happen and I think of Lucien Bousard who championed Quebec secession and he was like and and Renie Lebec in his own way also these men personified the project they lived it it was so clear it was in their heart they bled it and they had a deep connection culturally with with the people they were seeking support
(25:19) from preston Manning it’s very interesting to me that he’s talking about secession but I just checked and he turns 83 in a couple months so he’s not the man to lead it i mean I obviously I’m sure he’s still bright but you’re not going to launch a vigorous campaign when you’re 83 years old i don’t think although these days I don’t know who like I think you need a a seed crystal you know what I mean a crystal around which other crystals form who would be the leader of that and I think that’s so essential because that person would immediately be
(25:57) attacked by by the entire establishment the media establishment there would be investigations of them the CBC would go to war against them who could be a leader to take Alberta in your vision to take Alberta from an unhappy part of Confederation to this independent republic part of the Commonwealth who who would be that because it history needs great men and women it just doesn’t happen well Dennis Modri and I co-founded uh the Alberta Prosperity Project for this very reason which was to teach Albertans about the benefits of independence last
(26:36) night we had a meeting that was you know attended by no fewer than four retired uh members of parliament some of whom served under Preston Manning retired NHL hockey players you know other members of Alberta society uh presidents and CEOs of Alberta financial institutions etc i mean this is the movement we are putting together uh you know I’m very much I’m a barristister i’m a very much a projectoriented kind of you know person you know when I was on Fox News they were jokingly uh you know referring to me as the governor of Alberta i stated
(27:07) at the end of you know of that uh program that I have no interest in running for politics ever but that having been said I’m a very projectoriented individual and I’m committed to carrying this project across the line it’ll be the you know it’ll be one of my greatest professional accomplishments as a lawyer which is to give effect to the independence of Alberta so you know we’re certainly leading the charge i’m I’m at the front edge of this as you’ve indicated i mean they’ve already started making fun of me on this hour 22 minutes somebody started
(27:36) a campaign with the law society to have my law license suspended because I’ve somehow violated my oath to his majesty the king by advocating a peaceful democratic process where my fellow citizens have a say in their futures and the futures of their family um you know I mean it just goes with the territory so you know currently I’m out front will another leader come along and and take my place and I’ll happily go back to doing what I do best which is you know working in the background and uh and making sure that this thing happens you
(28:07) know who knows um you know right now I you know for good or ill happen to be the face of the movement and I’m happy to carry the ball forward and continue to do what we’re doing which is to vigorously pursue an independent uh referendum independence referendum this year uh through a halfway to getting the signatures that we need for that referendum uh certainly I’m advocating I got stuck there hang on a second so we heard Danielle Smith the premier talk about a referendum you needed an enormous number of votes are you saying
(28:37) that you’ve collected hundreds of thousands of names to to call a 66 over 66,000 committed volunteers and supporters that are visily visily because of the period the referendum period that Kenny put in which is fairly short a 90-day period we’re putting together databases of all of the names that we’re going to need so that we can get those names all put in place with live signatures during the 90-day referendum period so we’re working diligently to get What’s the number you need to get how many How many We need We need
(29:10) 300,000 currently and there and there’s some talk that the Alberta government may in fact pass legislation to lower that threshold i think that’s an enormously high threshold but uh I mean daunting i mean I I looked at the it’s been a while since I’ve looked at the legislation i remember seeing it for recall which is to the ability to fire an MLA and it’s extraordinarily high it’s higher than than could ever possibly be achieved i don’t know just to give you just to give you a feeling for how realistic this is
(29:38) the National Firearms Association has over 100,000 members in Alberta alone okay right and you know so there’s a 100,000 signatures right there because I’m sure most members of the NFA have no interest in remaining in a country that just arbitrarily declares property that they own peacefully and legally uh you know to be prohibited and not you know not being able to be used anymore you know then we also have all of the people that are very capable of looking at their tax return and going “Boy wouldn’t my life be so much better off if I
(30:09) didn’t have to pay federal income tax anymore and that the you know that I was the only taxes I would pay would either be a flat Alberta you know uh 10% you know Alberta tax or a flat 10% uh Alberta corporate tax both of which would be eminently affordable to the Commonwealth of Alberta once we were no longer sending $71 billion a year to the rest of Canada so I mean from our perspective this entire project is eminently uh doable um whether we need get the signatures or not the other thing people need to keep in mind is
(30:42) that as Albert as the Alberta Prosperity Project uh membership grows by four four five six thousand people um uh a week um so is the membership of the United Conservative Party of Alberta so you know there’s you know currently I would I would estimate that AP has over 65% of the membership of the Alberta um uh Conservative Party the United Conservative Party so you know one way or another we are going to have a referendum this year and quite frankly from our perspective and this is the meeting that I intend I I attended last
(31:16) night with you know retired MPs and other very prominent Albertans we’re committed to doing this whether Pier Poly wins the election or not so I think Danielle isn’t really keeping up with her base when she’s thinking “Oh everything’s going to be lovely once Pierre is elected because Pierre will not end transfer payments he will not stop the bleeding of money from Alberta to Quebec.
(31:38) ” He may get rid of um you know the the list of nine things that Danielle put forward you know in and around you know in and around oil and gas but that doesn’t solve our problems our problems are structural and the problem that Alberta has with Canadian Federation is the fact that we are effectively a colony of Western Canada and we do not have adequate representation uh you know Western Canada has been pounding its head against a brick wall for 30 years and I think this is why Preston’s had a change of heart under the slogan the West wants
(32:07) in and we’re sick and tired of Quebec and Ontario saying screw you we’re not interested we like the status quo and go back to being our dairy cow because we’re just going to keep squeezing all of you dry and to hell with you and to hell with your families and to hell with your aspirations we don’t care because Canada works very well for us and uh to hell with Alberta i just looked up the stats and in the last provincial election um Danielle Smith’s government received 929,000 votes so if you’re saying the threshold for a
(32:39) um a a referendum is only 300,000 I I want to put my eyes on that to double check myself because that’s that’s much lower than I thought it was i should tell you that the opposition New Democrats got an additional 777,000 votes last time the reason I mentioned that is that these two parties had 1.
(33:01) 7 million votes between them and if you’re saying that you can trigger a a referendum on the separation of Alberta for just 300,000 votes that’s that’s only one sixth of the voter turnout let alone the total eligible voting which was election turnout was only 60% so I’m not going to try and do the math live on TV i’ll get hurt but there’s let’s say about two and a half million voters if you if you’re saying that you really only need 10% of eligible voters to say we want a referendum on secession that’s only 177,000 votes or 177,000 signatures 10%
(33:41) of 1.77 million it’s currently 20 it’s I think it’s currently 20% is the referendum threshold so it’s you know it’s over it’s over 300 uh thousand but um you know if that threshold was lowered to 10% we could have those signatures by next month i’m not talking about lowering it i’m trying to figure out exactly how many are needed and what that proportion is compared to voter turnout and I’m sorry I I should do some deeper research on this i’m just sort of going in real time here because if you’re saying you can trigger a separate
(34:10) separation uh vote with just 300,000 names on a signature I think that is something that can be done and I think then the next question and then you’re going to see an astonishing thing in my view the block kebiqua and the parti kibbiqua in Quebec are treated extra good what I mean by that is when they threaten to leave they don’t get a tit fortat response from Ottawa they don’t get threats it’s it’s not like um uh you know counterveailing tariffs or anything it’s the opposite they get uh appeasement they get what can we do to
(34:47) make you happier can we guarantee you three seats on the Supreme Court que Quebec voted 40% in favor of independence in the first Renee Lebec referendum and that 40% vote resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars being sucked out of Alberta by a vacuum right and what I’m saying that was that was the result of that if Alberta tried the same thing it would not get the same reaction it would not get loving bribes it would get rage and attacks and defamation we do not care we are beyond caring about anything Canada has to say
(35:22) and and let me you know let me you know explain that i mean when we were locked up in our homes when we were told we couldn’t fly on airplanes because we’re not going to get an experimental shot put in our arms you know when uh you know Trudeau had indigenous women trampled in the streets by horses because he couldn’t stand the idea of Albertans protesting in Ottawa um we didn’t we were in a constitutional crisis were still in a constitutional crisis and in fact Canada se from our perspective Canada separated from
(35:53) Alberta when that happened so we’re just basically um you know going through the motions of making it official as far as we’re concerned so you know that’s how everybody that I’m working with and everybody that’s on our team you know looks at this project that we’ve undertaken is that Canada itself isn’t the Canada that any of us grew up in um everybody can talk about all this elbows up nonsense and team Canada crap that Danielle’s mouthing but she’s I think she’s completely out of touch with her base on that and I think she’d be I
(36:23) don’t know that she’d really be shocked but I think she understands that at least 65% of the UCP base now fully supports independence so you know talk about just let me finish there’s one other there’s one other mechanism you know towards uh independence as well um you know all of the people that are members of A take back Alberta etc they all got together and got rid of Jason Kenny and you know and I think Danielle needs to remember that you know if her base doesn’t like the fact that you know she’s making statements about separate
(36:54) you know independence being nonsense and not um you know supporting the aspirations of her base uh you know a new leader can be easily selected I mean I’m going to disagree with you support for independence within the UCP right now to do it you know she got 91% in her leadership review just a few months ago she had the largest and a lot of that was whipped by people including including myself not whip but I mean was encouraged by people like myself who you know at the time did not want to see a change of leadership within that party
(37:22) and a lot of a lot of us you know got you know got on board with Danielle on the promise that she was going to amend the Bill of Rights to ensure that the property rights in the Bill of Rights were enshrined as being a a substantive right rather than a procedural right and we were all stabbed in the back by the Alberta bureaucracy who in fact we let me push pause here i want to get back to the other strengths sorry was it i one of um the interesting things in my life was I I sort of grew up at the same time
(37:52) the reform party grew up i was I joined the party when I was the day I turned 18 really and um and I watched it grow and I went town by town throughout Alberta and I saw Preston Manning you know being on the road 200 days a year uh in every church basement doing the rubber chicken circuit grassroots building up an organization he built up a political party so you know he and I and I remember before that one of the things he built the Reform Party in response to was the Western Canada concept which was a separatist party which actually elected
(38:25) a seat in the Alberta legislature um and and I guess I would ask you do your plans include setting up a new provincial party well you don’t need to set up a new provincial party you know A and the Independence Movement of Alberta is the UCP now so that’s what people need to learn do they agree are there any sitting MLAs who attended your meeting we’re we’re we have a number of sitting MLAs that are very in favor of what we’re doing and are very friendly towards what we’re doing so you know the meeting the meeting last night didn’t
(39:03) include any sitting MLAs but there were several sitting MLAs that would have come had they not had previous commitments i can tell you that what would the question be because you know whenever you start talking about Alberta leaving Canada there’s a certain amount of support but then you get into would you join the states would you be independent would you join with us the question is very simple Ezra and it’s already been drafted the qu you know the question is do you support Alberta leaving Canada and becoming an independent country
(39:36) period that’s the question and all of these other things i mean like your poll as an example on um you know support in Alberta for Alberta becoming you know an American state i’ll you know I’ll tell you right now within the independence movement itself there’s less support for full-blown American statehood than there is just for Alberta independence and and I’ll tell you one of the biggest reasons for that is simple it’s two words income tax right if you become a full-blown um American state you’re trading you know
(40:06) the depradations of the CRA and the Canadian Revenue Agency for the IRS but if Alberta were a standalone independent country um you know we could have a constitutional limit on the amount of taxation levied on on Albertans that you know uh we think a feasible number consulting with financial experts is 10% of uh a flat income tax of 10% flat corporate tax of 10% um uh no other taxes and Alberta would be able to well afford that so who said vote for that who’s the leader and the reason I say that is I’m imagining
(40:41) if you actually got the the the votes sorry the the petition signatures you would have every leader from Ottawa come out but I think you would have a number of Alberta leaders you would have mayors you would have MLAs you would have MPs you would have and by the way I think you would have the Conservative Party of Canada oppose it i think you would have the People’s Party of Canada oppose it but I think every single Canadian political party would oppose it and I think that Danielle Smith I herself uh and and and maybe I’m not following it
(41:18) closely enough i think she would oppose it so you would have every instrument of the establishment politically every media outlet with with maybe one or two independent exceptions every financial establishment i think I wouldn’t I wouldn’t go so far down that road Ezra i mean there’s you know like I said we you know we had a we had one of the people at our meeting last night was the CEO of a major Alberta financial institution he thinks it’s a great idea you know I think what you need to get your head around and people need to get their
(41:48) heads around Albertans are a very independent bunch and especially when you look at rural Albertans who are sick and tired of the status quo who do not trust any of our politicians anymore who do not give a you know as far as most Albertans are concerned Jason Kenny is a Trudeau liberal so you know you can say whatever you want about the Conservative party i mean Pierre Paul on the you know for a lot of us is really a Trudeau to liberal he opposes an end to transfer payments he supports the dairy mafia um you know you know we’re done with it i
(42:19) mean you know most true Albertans are completely done with Canada and just want to get the hell out and I think that our project I think can be highly recommended to our fellow Albertans from an economic basis and if people want to say “Oh but I love my Canadian passport.” Well guess what you know nobody’s going to lose their Canadian citizenship when Alberta becomes independent canada doesn’t recognize the renunciation of Canadian citizenship so everybody that’s really attached to their Canadian passport can keep their
(42:48) Canadian passport there will also be an Alberta passport so you know we’re you know we’re really excited about this project we’re moving it forward and uh you know we’re not going to let um you know the the establishment forces that literally treat Alberta citizens like subjects and peeons which they have done for decades um you know if not since you know 1905 stand in the way of independent Albertans standing up and saying “We’ve had enough we want out we want a new constitution um that gets us out of the Westminster system of
(43:20) governance where we elect effectively a you know a dictator an elected dictator for five years at a time with no checks and balances i mean people want a real substantive change to the way that we’re governed and the relationship between citizens and the government you know I I’m just trying to smoke out different questions because I’ve been thinking about some of these issues for my whole life and I’ve also observed Quebec for example and how it tried to deal with these things i mentioned to Derek Philibbrand of the Western
(43:54) Standard that when I was in Ottawa I became friends when I was a young man I worked for Preston Manning out in Ottawa i became friends with my counterpart who worked for the block kibbaqua and uh it was sort of an interesting friendship people from different parts of the country and different parts of the ideological spectrum and one thing I learned was that the participa that is the provincial separatist party when it formed the government so when it had the access to the resources of the state it put together a multi-olume sort of
(44:23) encyclopedia on how to separate and they got the smartest people in Quebec to write different essays what will we do about our currency what will we do with our military bases what will we do with our debt what we like all the qu because as soon as you say separate then people start to think about things they’re worried about uh and this project and I and I actually got a a set of this sort of I forget what it was called it was in French it was big volumes of thoughtful scholarly answers to genuine questions everything
(44:56) I just said there it’s a real question and u what happens to our to our passports what happens to our there’s a lot and some of them have really easy answers some there’s different kinds of answers and I think what that did is that was an attempt by the partic the referendum successful and and they had a a network of academics and people in the cultural community i mean so much of the Quebec cultural community artists songwriters poets novelists so much of the artistic community because it was so romantic the
(45:40) idea of Quebec independence were on side so it wasn’t just politicians it was lawyers it was economists it was professors it was artists and and it was a movement and but I don’t think what you seem to be giving credit to Ezra is that a lot of that work is being done by A and has already been done by A we’re certainly aware of a lot of the work that’s been done in Quebec and a lot of us have read it so you know I mean a lot of and a lot of the questions are fairly simple are fairly simple to answer i mean one of the one of the biggest
(46:11) questions we get is oh my goodness what’s going to like and this is for a serious serious issue for people on fixed incomes and people that are looking at retirement and we have a big segment of our baby boom population you know that’s heading that way oh my goodness what about our Canada pension plan you know and the simple answer is there’s going to be a constitutionalized guarantee of um people’s pensions in you know the independent commonwealth of Alberta guaranteed by the full resource wealth of the province of Alberta that
(46:40) um you know those pensions will be payable in US dollars or whatever the new currency of Alberta will be the Alberta dollar um uh you know guaranteed until Alberta negotiates the uh repatriation of the 300 and some odd billion dollars of Alberta money that’s parked in the can in the Canada pension plan but the great thing about Alberta and Alberta’s wealth is we can afford to self-fund those pensions very easily i mean we’re only looking right now we send n billion a year to CPP we get three billion back so we’re looking at
(47:11) $3 billion in in pensions that have to be covered off by the uh you know by the Commonwealth of Alberta the day that you know we declare independence i mean that’s not a that’s not that’s not a problem and that’s only if Canada decides to try to play some stupid little hard ball game and say “Oh if you’re going to be independent we’re going to cut off your pensions.
(47:29) ” or alternatively in the likelihood that the Canadian dollar starts trading on par with the Polish Lahi after Alberta and all of its oil revenue and resources leave Canada um you know again the Alberta government would guarantee the pensions of Alberta pensioners um you know at the same rate on you know uh pegged to the US dollar I mean we’re discussing all of those things I mean that’s why we have you know CEOs from financial institutions that are part of our movement and part of our group I mean you know we’re cons you know we
(47:56) have experts that are involved you know in you know subject subject matter experts in these areas that are working with us so how do you how do you make this project and we’re serious about moving it all forward i think that a fear-based campaign that would unlock genuine concerns of people would be devastating um oh I don’t I don’t think so i mean they’re already trying to ask how do you how do you uh allay concerns and fears i think there’s a huge fear of change and things are bad in Alberta but things could always get worse oh and
(48:34) they’re going to get worse whether polyar and especially if elected so from our perspective you know a lot of that fear you know first of all is completely misplaced so you know if oh what would happen if BC cut off our pipelines well you know BC needs to have you know all of its goods moved by rail through Alberta to Ontario so nobody’s going to be cutting off their nose to spite their face and once Alberta leaves Canada there’s going to have to be a responsible discussion between responsible adults to make sure that
(49:05) everything continues to work for everybody’s mutual benefit um on the basis of our preliminary discussions with the US we have no concerns whatsoever with regard to the United States recognizing Alberta independence in the same way that they intend to recognize the independence and self-determination of Greenland so you know we don’t see any of these things as being an insurmountable obstacle other than unfortunately in a postcoavid world after Trudeau sick the Canadian Army psychological warfare division on
(49:34) Canadian people uh you know people have been very you know uh um trained to respond to fear-based arguments did you did you wind up going down the benefits far outweigh and and the case we can make for all the benefits far outweigh all of the fear that they’re going to be pouring all over us that’s the only argument they have oh worry about this worry about that we’re going to do this well human nature goes both ways have you Have you I know a little while ago I saw news that you were going to lead a delegation to Washington did that
(50:04) proceed and if so who did you meet with well we’re no we’re moving forward we’re in the process of confirming meetings and so on i’m going to be heading down to DC in a couple weeks to do some advance work for that um the feedback that we’re getting from the uh members of the administration that we’re in contact with is overwhelmingly positive um you know and uh we’re we’re moving forward with that project so we’ll be going down our delegation will be going down probably in four to five weeks and uh what we hope to do is you know have
(50:30) some meetings with the the US administration confirm some of the things that President Trump has teased out with regard to um you know various forms of Canadian independence including uh you know the conversion of Alberta government you know Alberta assets and savings and so on at par with the US dollar you know those types of things find out what level of support would be forthcoming from uh you know from uh the President Trump administration you know all of those things are going to make independence that much easier and I
(50:59) think you know we are at a tipping point in history i mean we haveund you know I’m well aware as both as a political scientist and a lawyer that uh you know there’sund and some odd years of of history where the US has not um you know overtly interfered in the internal affairs of Canada but that having that having been said we think that we’re in a there’s a new administration there’s a new day and we think to the extent that President Trump was willing to support self-determination for Greenland he should be um even more willing to
(51:28) support self-determination for Alberta because of the benefits that it would bring to the United States from a national security perspective and completely eliminating the ability of Ottawa and buffoonish premers like Doug Ford threatening uh US security of energy supply threatening export tariffs and cutting off US oil and you know exports from Alberta and all of the stupidity that we’ve heard in the context of this phony tariff war that Trudeau started for the electoral benefit of Mark Cernney well Jeffrey
(51:59) it’s very interesting to talk about these things and um you know history uh it I don’t know if it repeats itself but it certainly rhymes as they say and I’ve this discomfort within Canada predates Confederation i mean the Albert and Saskatchewan were supposed to join together as a province called Buffalo but they were split in half in part to keep them weaker and when they joined they joined unequal they didn’t have the same resource rights as the other provinces and during the depression the Alberta was allowed to go bankrupt uh by
(52:38) the by the country and and I and I think a lot of the complaints from William Abberhart were legitimate even if his solutions weren’t and then Ernest Manning and then his son Preston Manning these things have been an Alberta issue for more than 120 years and it’ll be interesting to see if Mark Carney wins and I still hold out hope that he won’t um will he inflame things such that Alberta as Preston Manning says succeeds it’s great to talk with you thank you for answering my questions which I’m trying to probe the state of things i
(53:14) want to corroborate some of the things you said in terms of the threshold for a petition because if it is true that just 300,000 names is what’s needed to have a referendum that is a very low number when considered with the size of the voting uh the list of potential voters and something else you have to keep in mind Ezra is that the people that I’m working with whether we succeed this year or not we’re determined to have you know to have either have a petition drive every year to have a referendum vote every year until we leave Canada or
(53:48) alternatively change the you know to put enough pressure on the Alberta government to bring in what I think is necessary which is an Alberta Independence Referendum Act that would require a referendum on independence every time there’s a federal election so every time Toronto and Montreal elects the next boss of us Albertans can decide whether or not we want to stay in a country under the leadership of whoever it is that the you know that the the that Ontario and Quebec elect to be our colonial master so I mean that’s where
(54:21) that’s where we’re at we have a committed movement we’re moving forward and uh we’re looking forward hopefully to a successful referendum for independence this year and American recognition of our independence well I live in Toronto and I can assure you I have had no role in choosing our national or provincial leaders jeffrey Wrath I introduced you as a lawyer and a troublemaker and I think I was accurate and uh I’m sure we’ll keep in touch in this issue i mean it has been something on my mind since I was a teenager and um
(54:55) I actually met Renie Lec when he came to Calgary and I asked him about Western sepatism who was very shy he was on a book tour and he didn’t want to weigh in on the subject but I actually Well of course of course he is because he wouldn’t want to disrupt the laying of the golden eggs for Quebec he had I think one of the best Rene Lec uh uh anecdotes I heard was you know why did you hold a referendum when you knew you couldn’t win and LC’s response was I have 16 billion very good reasons oh I didn’t hear that wonderful jeffrey Wrath
(55:27) great to talk to you we’ll keep in touch all right you bet Ezra thanks for having me on well very interesting i mean you know in Toronto Toronto believes it’s the center of the universe and in some ways it is it’s the financial and business and media capital of the country but there are other parts of this country that do not feel uh like they are truly at home in the country with Quebec’s dissatisfaction with Confederation certainly gets a lot of airtime and national attention but anytime Alberta feels abused or u looked
(56:03) over and I mentioned for example of course there’s no not a single cabinet minister in Mark Carney’s government from Alberta not that there’s much uh lumber to pick from for the cabinet we’ll follow the story with interest stay with us your letters to me next [Music] well Jeffrey Wrath is very interesting and he’s got a lot to say and normally I don’t find it hard to get a word in edge-wise but he’s a good talker i I like him i like him i uh he’s got confidence i’ll give him that uh I worked with a guy who built a national
(56:47) party from scratch his name was Preston Manning and I was his assistant for a little while and I was head of the youth club for a while and it’s hard work and um I don’t know if it happens quickly i mean some separatist movements around the world do happen astonishingly quickly i have only briefly studied the separation of Czech the Czech Republic and Slovakia i think that happened in less than a year um Brexit was an enormous effort it took years um who knows uh but it’s interesting we’ll follow and we’ll treat him fairly here’s
(57:21) some letters on Tamara Leech’s unfortunate conviction yesterday as well as Chris Barbers janna Ndd says “How can she be convicted if the Supreme Court ruled the Emergencies Act was illegally invoked?” It was the federal court that said that you’re right it was unconstitutional and illegal but what they said about Tamara Leech was not under the emergencies act it was under the regular criminal code they charged her with mischief intimidation obstruction of police now all of those other charges were acquitted but they did find her guilty
(57:55) of mischief i disagree with that for the reasons I’ve told you before but the fact that the emergencies act was illegal didn’t wasn’t actually the law under which she was ch charged anthony F talks about Paul Chang the Liberal MP who called for the kidnapping of a rival and says “But Chang threatens an MP’s life and walks free.
(58:20) ” Yeah i mean how can it that’s the two-tier justice system that I’m talking about i mean blocking roads and streets well that’s what the pro Hamas protesters do every week and many of them aren’t even Canadian citizens the police act as their conciergees paul Chang threatens to kidnap someone and tehe it was just a missspeaking or a joke next letter from Deng if Carney is elected these same charges are bound to be the norm on Canadians well I fear for that because you may recall that during the lockdowns Mark Carney who was
(58:53) overseas in the UK wrote an op-ed in the Globe and Mail saying that people should be charged with sedition for supporting the truckers in fact he had a lot of misinformation in his oped about it being foreign financed and foreign controlled mark Carney is an authoritarian man he’s a World Economic Forum man and he’s not even really a Canadian he hasn’t lived here in over a decade i am worried about him hopefully he won’t win but if he does maybe Jeffrey Wrath will be prophetic that’s our show for today until next time on
(59:25) behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home good night and keep fighting for freedom [Music]