Ezra Levant examines Alberta’s separatist surge, with Jeffrey Rath and Preston Manning pushing independence if Mark Carney leads—claiming federal taxes ($71B in transfer payments) and climate policies (e.g., $1.60/liter fuel costs) cripple the province. The movement, backed by 65% of UCP members and 66,000 volunteers, seeks a referendum with 300,000 signatures, proposing a 10% flat tax and U.S.-dollar pensions. Manning’s shift from "West Wants In" to separatism mirrors Alberta’s frustration over COVID mandates, firearms bans, and perceived Ottawa hostility, contrasting Quebec’s concessions. With Trump’s past support and U.S. talks underway, independence could redefine Canada’s economic and political future—challenging federal unity amid rising Western alienation. [Automatically generated summary]
Big talk with Jeffrey Rath, 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 know, I hope you find it interesting whether or not you're from Alberta.
It would obviously affect the entire country.
I also want to show you a couple new videos from Mark Carney, including an astonishing one about him and American strawberries.
You've got to see this one.
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 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.
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.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
I've got a long interview for you today that I just recorded with Jeffrey Rath, who's really one of the leaders behind the Alberta Separatist Movement.
It's a long interview, and 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' position on Alberta separatism is, first of all, to try and fix the underlying grievances.
And second of all, if those grievances could not be fixed, to be a fair 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 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 premiers like Ontario and Quebec do too.
I ask you, remember a couple months ago when all these politicians, all these premiers 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, suggestive talking points on a hundred things.
Believe in Alliances?00:15:10
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?
Est-ce que vous en achetez encore des produits américains?
Est-ce que vous achetez des fraises des États-Unis?
Vous envoyez des fraises des États-Unis?
OK.
Je dois vous donner une réponse bizarre, dans un sens bizarre, parce qu'étant premier ministre, je n'achète plus des fraises et tout cela.
Quelqu'un le fait.
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 tone-deaf 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 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 U.S. approach.
At the same time, Canada must be looking elsewhere to 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 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 censorious.
And Canada does not believe 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 stats, we actually have the lowest, most sluggish economy in the G7.
We're actually in a recession 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.
So those countries have gone ahead and inked massive deals with our competitors like Qatar.
Yeah, sorry.
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 Rath.
a look.
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 the ideology of Justin Trudeau.
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 more networked than Trudeau.
He's a much more serious man than Trudeau.
He's not obsessed with photo ops 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 co-chair of something called G-Fans, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, which is another way of saying keep the oil sands in the ground.
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 mild-mannered way.
I showed the clip to you last week, but I want to show one more time.
Here's Danielle Smith talking about what could 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 mandate to try to make Canada work.
And that's what I've been working towards relentlessly over these last two and a half years.
As you know, we did put in place a process for citizen-initiated referenda.
And I leave it to Albertans who may feel differently to put forward a petition campaign.
But I think my job as an Albertan and as a Canadian 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 premiers do.
And we have consistently for the last number of meetings signed on to a communiques talking about how we're going to build economic corridors.
This last one, economic corridors with oil and gas and transmission lines, rail lines, and new highways and other infrastructure in those corridors.
And so I believe there's goodwill on the part of the other premiers.
The problem is, unless we solve those federal barriers, it's just words on paper.
So I'm going to continue to use sort of that newfound sense of esprit de corps with my fellow premiers.
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.
But so far, I'm dissatisfied with what I'm hearing out of the new prime minister.
He doesn't seem to understand just how foundational these are if we're going to reset the relationship.
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 premiers are her allies.
I think that's probably true in the case of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Mo.
But it is definitely not the case of the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, who has suggested that export taxes be put on Alberta Energy.
And Francois Legault, the Premier of Quebec, who has said that no pipelines are passing through his province.
So all the talk about stopping inter-provincial trade barriers, all this team Canada talk, it's just a ruse.
It's just a temporary fad.
The rest of the premiers 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 discussing.
And it's in response to criticism 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 the first clip we showed was interesting.
I think she's being too generous to her fellow premiers who look at Alberta as a milk cow.
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 Alberta independence as Canada faces a trade war and threats of annexation from the U.S.?
Well, 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 I'm also Premier of Alberta.
And quite frankly, at some point, Canada has to start working for Alberta.
And it's not right now.
We have a number of policies that came in over the last 10 years that have 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 nine major policies that I think have to be repealed after the next election.
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 C-69.
He supports emissions caps.
That is moving in the wrong direction.
So we will get through this election.
We'll see who ends up winning.
And I will continue to advocate for those.
And that's part of the reason why I will do a What's Next panel.
We did that 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'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 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 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, 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 Manning really stopped Western separatism.
Here's how he's talking today.
If the liberals, employing the fear of U.S. 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 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 purpose was to unify Canada, to fix Canada, to moderate Canada.
He really was a nationalist the West wants in.
And now he is saying: if Mark Carney is re-elected, get ready for peaceful secession.
Joining us now to talk about that possibility is Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer, activist, and a teeny tiny bit of a troublemaker who joins us now live 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 on the leading edge of this.
Well, I'm 100% in favor of Alberta statehood.
And 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 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 to only get ostensibly $30 billion in services back from Ottawa.
Well, we continue to fund gold-plated 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 $1.60 a liter to 80 cents a liter.
I mean, that's enough to get 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, teacher, you know, whatever, you know, making on, you know, making a decent middle-class living of $100,000 a year, where you pay, you know, 35, 40% 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 future we're talking about for Alberta.
And I mean, what 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 along with you, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
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 Canada Canada that would exceed the value of the benefits that I just listed for leaving Canada.
Alberta Independence Benefits00:08:03
And, you know, the other thing that I'm involved in, obviously, is our delegation to Washington.
We're in contact with the U.S. administration at this point in time.
I'm advised by contacts that we have in the United States that our correspondence has literally landed on the president's desk and is being reviewed at the highest level in the United States favorably and with much interest.
You know, obviously, for the United States, a free and independent Alberta with strong economic ties to the United States, you know, that embraces President Trump's policy of reciprocal tariffs, where if we have zero tariffs on the Alberta side of the border, they'll have zero tariffs on the U.S. side of the border, a negotiated open border with the United States, a much more robust economic union that the Americans can count on,
security of supply of Alberta oil and gas without people like Mr. Carney imposing emissions caps, production caps, interfering with our ability to ship oil by rail to the United States like Trudeau did by changing the tanker specifications so that only Berkshire Hathaway can supply train cars for Alberta oil to move south.
I'd like to know what the deal is between the relationship is between Brookfield and Berkshire Hathaway, by the way, but I'm sure we'll have some money somewhere.
But anyway, 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 state.
And I know you're talking now you mentioned an independent state.
I think there's two different conversations going on, if I may.
One is a financial, it's like 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 relationship with the U.S.
And Trump has talked about that too.
You know, I think he's alluded to exchanging the Canadian dollar at par.
There was a lot of financial, it was like a checklist of benefits, most of which you could quantify, and others like military, which you could, I suppose, quantify too.
But on the other hand, there's a reaction, and I think it's particularly strong in Ontario, because remember, Ontario, a lot of people in Ontario, 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.
And obviously, that was more than 200 years ago, but there still is 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 king, the queen.
And those are all emotional things that you can't sort of counter with financial things.
Is it a different thing?
Well, technically, people in Ontario don't get a vote, Ezra.
I mean, I guess I'll sit down.
Everybody's not getting voted in our referendum.
So you can have all the Trump derangement syndrome you want in Ontario.
I mean, I'm sure it goes hand in hand with their vaccination rates and the fact that they had such a huge amount of support for the COVID Nazism that a lot of Albertans thought was just completely out to lunch.
You know, 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 mean, I understand that.
I mean, we're not necessarily, you know, that's why we call our project the Commonwealth of Alberta Project.
I mean, you know, an independent Republic of Alberta, we would imagine, would remain a member of the Commonwealth.
We would certainly continue to have congenial relationships with His Majesty the King.
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, the polling that we are looking at now has support for Alberta independence approaching the level that voted yes in the first Quebec referendum of 40.44%.
And again, that's without Albertans internalizing 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 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, 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 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 cut off Alberta oil to the United States without understanding that Ontario's oil comes up through, you know, comes up from line nine through the United States.
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.
I look at the United Kingdom, where Nigel Farage, I think, was the personification of the 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, I think he was a man of consequence and he made it happen.
And I think of Lucien Bouchard, who championed Quebec secession.
And he was like, and Renee Levesque 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 the people they were seeking support 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'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 seed crystal, you know what I mean?
A crystal around which other crystals form.
Who would be the leader of that?
I think that's so essential because that person would immediately be attacked 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 would be that?
Because history needs great men and women.
It just doesn't happen.
Well, Dennis Maudry and I co-founded the Alberta Prosperity Project for this very reason, which was to teach Albertans about the benefits of independence.
Last night we had a meeting that was attended by no fewer than four retired members of parliament, some of whom served under Preston Menning, retired NHL hockey players, other members of Alberta society, presidents and CEOs of Alberta financial institutions, et cetera.
Separation Referendum Threshold00:07:48
I mean, this is the movement we are putting together.
You know, I'm very much, I'm a barrister.
I'm a very much a project-oriented kind of person.
You know, when I was on Fox News, they were jokingly referring to me as the governor of Alberta.
I stated at the end of that program that I have no interest in running for politics ever.
But that having been said, I'm a very project-oriented individual, and I'm committed to carrying this project across the line.
It'll be the 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 at the front edge of this, as you've indicated.
I mean, they've already started making fun of me on this hourhouse 22 minutes.
Somebody started a campaign with the Law Society to have my lawsuit 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.
You know, I mean, it just goes with the territory.
So, you know, currently I'm out front.
Will another leader come along 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 making sure that this thing happens.
You know, who knows?
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 referendum, an independence referendum this year through APP.
We're halfway to getting the signatures that we need for that referendum.
Certainly, I'm advocating.
Hang on a second.
So we heard Danielle Smith, the Premier, talk about a referendum.
You need an enormous number of votes.
Are you saying that you've collected hundreds of thousands of names to call?
APP has over 66,000 committed volunteers and supporters that are busily, 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 300,000 currently.
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, I mean, daunting.
I mean, I looked at the, it's been a while since I've looked at the legislation.
I remember seeing it for recall, which is the ability to fire an MLA.
And it's extraordinarily high.
It's higher than could ever possibly be achieved.
Just to give you a feeling for how realistic this is, the National Firearms Association has over 100,000 members in Alberta alone.
Right.
And, you know, so there's 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 illegally to be prohibited and not being able to be used anymore.
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 didn't have to pay federal income tax anymore?
And that I was the only taxes I would pay would either be a flat Alberta 10% Alberta tax or a flat 10% 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 doable.
Whether we get the signatures or not, the other thing people need to keep in mind is that as the Alberta Prosperity Project membership grows by four or five, 6,000 people a week, so is the membership of the United Conservative Party of Alberta.
So, you know, there's, you know, currently, I would estimate that APP has over 65% of the membership of the Alberta 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 attended last night with retired MPs and other very prominent Albertans, we're committed to doing this, whether Pierre Polly 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.
He may get rid of the list of nine things that Danielle put forward 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.
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 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 to hell with Alberta.
I just looked up the stats and in the last provincial election, Danielle Smith's government received 929,000 votes.
So if you're saying the threshold for a referendum is only 300,000, I want to put my ass on that to double check myself because 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 1.7 million votes between them.
And if you're saying that you can trigger a referendum on the separation of Alberta for just 300,000 votes, 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 it hurt.
But there's, let's say, about 2.5 million voters.
If you're saying that you really only need 10% of eligible voters to say we want a referendum on system.
That's only 177,000 votes or 177,000 signatures, 10% of 1.77 million.
It's currently 20%.
I think it's currently 20% is the referendum threshold.
So it's, you know, it's over it's over 300,000.
But, 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 true net.
And sorry, 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 separation 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 Québécois and the Parti Québécois in Quebec are treated extra good.
What I mean by that is when they threaten to leave, they don't get a tit-for-tat response from Ottawa.
They don't get threats.
It's not like countervailing tariffs or anything.
Quebecois Independence Mechanisms00:11:31
It's the opposite.
They get appeasement.
They get, what can we do to make you happier?
Can we guarantee you three seats on the Supreme Court?
Quebec voted 40% in favor of independence in the first René 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 is 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.
We do not care.
We are beyond caring about anything Canada has to say.
And let me 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, when Trudeau had Indigenous women trampled in the streets by horses because he couldn't stand the idea of Albertans protesting in Ottawa, we were in a constitutional crisis.
We're still in a constitutional crisis.
And in fact, Canada said, from our perspective, Canada separated from Alberta when that happened.
So we're just basically going through the motions of making it official as far as we're concerned.
So that's how everybody that I'm working with and everybody that's on our team looks at this project that we've undertaken: that Canada itself isn't the Canada that any of us grew up in.
Everybody can talk about all this elbows up nonsense and Teen Canada crap that Danielle's mouthing.
But I think she's completely out of touch with her base on that.
And I think she'd be, I 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, just let me finish.
There's one other mechanism towards independence as well.
You know, all of the people that are members of APP, Take Back Alberta, et cetera, they all got together and got rid of Jason Kenny.
And, you know, and I think Danielle needs to remember that if her base doesn't like the fact that she's making statements about separate, you know, this independence being nonsense and not supporting the aspirations of her base, a new leader can be easily selected.
I mean, there's enough 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 large whipped by people, including myself, not whipped, 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.
And 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 property rights in the Bill of Rights were enshrined as being a substantive right rather than a procedural right.
And we were all stabbed in the back by the Alberta bureaucracy, who, in fact, we pushed on.
I want to get back to that.
Sorry, one of the interesting things in my life was I sort of grew up at the same time the Reform Party grew up.
I joined the party when I was the day I turned 18, really.
And I watched it grow and I went town by town throughout Alberta and I saw Preston Manning being on the road 200 days a year 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 a seat in the Alberta legislature.
And I guess I would ask you, do your plans include setting up a new provincial party?
We don't need to set up a new provincial party.
You know, APP and the independence movement of Alberta is the UCP now.
So that's what people need to do.
Do they agree?
Are there any sitting MLAs who attended your meeting?
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 last night didn't include any sitting MLAs, but there were several sitting MLAs that would have come had they not had previous commitments.
So 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, well, 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.
You know, the question is, do you support Alberta leaving Canada and becoming an independent country?
Period.
That's the question.
And all of these other things, and I mean, like your poll as an example on, you know, support in Alberta for Alberta becoming an American state.
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 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 American state, you're trading the depredations of the CRA and the Canadian Revenue Agency for the IRS.
But if Alberta were a standalone independent country, we could have a constitutional limit on the amount of taxation levied on Albertans.
We think a feasible number consulting with financial experts is 10% of a flat income tax of 10%, flat corporate tax of 10%, no other taxes, and Alberta would be able to well afford that.
So why would we vote for that?
Who's the leader?
And the reason I say that is I'm imagining if you actually got the votes, sort of 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.
I think every single Canadian political party would oppose it.
And I think that Danielle Smith herself, and maybe I'm not following it closely enough, I think she would oppose it.
So you would have every instrument of the establishment politically, every media outlet with maybe one or two independent exceptions, every financial establishment.
Oh, I wouldn't go so far down that road, Ezra.
I mean, there's, you know, like I said, we've, 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 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, you have, you know, for a lot of us, is really a Trudeau liberal.
He opposes an end to transfer payments.
He supports the dairy mafia.
You know, we're done with it.
I 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 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, you know, we're not going to let, you know, the establishment forces that literally treat Alberta citizens like subjects and peons, which they have done for decades, 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 that gets us out of the Westminster system of governance where we elect effectively 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'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 Philibrand of the Western Standard that when I was in Ottawa, I became friends when I was a young man.
I worked for President Manning out in Ottawa.
I became friends with my counterpart who worked for the Bloc Québécois.
And 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 Parti Québécois, 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-volume sort of 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 will we like all the questions?
Because as soon as you say separate, then people start to think about things they're worried about.
And this project, and I actually got 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 I just said there, it's a real question.
And what happens 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 Parti Québécois to show that they had an answer for those things.
And it was a kind of planning document, too, in case they ever did get the referendum successful.
And they had 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 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 it was a movement.
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 APP and has already been done by APP.
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, or a fairly simple answer.
I mean, one of the biggest questions we get is, oh my goodness, what's going to happen?
Benefits Far Outweigh Risks00:05:30
And this is 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?
And the simple answer is there's going to be a constitutionalized guarantee of people's pensions in the independent Commonwealth of Alberta, guaranteed by the full resource wealth of the province of Alberta,
that those pensions will be payable in U.S. dollars or whatever the new currency of Alberta will be, the Alberta dollar, guaranteed until Alberta negotiates the repatriation of the $300 and some odd billion dollars of Alberta money that's parked 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 $9 billion a year to CPP, we get $3 billion back.
So we're looking at $3 billion in pensions that have to be covered off by the Commonwealth of Alberta the day that we declare independence.
I mean, that's not a problem.
And that's only if Canada decides to try to play some stupid little hardball game and say, oh, you're going to be independent.
We're going to cut off your pensions.
Or alternatively, in the likelihood that the Canadian dollar starts trading on par with the Polish lottie after Alberta and all of its oil revenue and resources leave Canada, again, the Alberta government would guarantee the pensions of Alberta pensioners at the same rate on peg to the U.S. dollar.
I mean, we're discussing all of those things.
I mean, that's why we have CEOs from financial institutions that are part of our movement and part of our group.
I mean, we're consulting, you know, we have experts that are involved in subject matter experts in these areas that are working with us.
So all of this is serious as a heart attack, 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.
I don't think so.
I mean, they're already trying it all.
How do you 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 they're going to get worse whether Paul is considering Carney, and especially if Cardin's elected.
So from our perspective, a lot of that fear, first of all, is completely misplaced.
So, if, oh, what would happen if BC cut off our pipelines?
Well, you know, BC needs to have 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 everything continues to work for everybody's mutual benefit.
On the basis of our preliminary discussions with the U.S., we have no concerns whatsoever with regards 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 post-COVID world, after Trudeau sick, the Canadian Army Psychological Warfare Division on Canadian people.
You know, people have been very trained to respond to fear-based arguments.
Did you wind up?
We think that the benefits far outweigh, 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, it's human nature to work with.
It goes both ways.
I know a little while ago, I saw news that you were going to lead a delegation to Washington.
Did that proceed?
And if so, who did you meet with?
Well, 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 of weeks to do some advanced work for that.
The feedback that we're getting from the members of the administration that we're in contact with is overwhelmingly positive.
And 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 what we hope to do is have some meetings with the U.S. administration, confirm some of the things that President Trump has teased out with regard to various forms of Canadian independence, including the conversion of Alberta assets and savings and so on at par with the U.S. dollar, those types of things, find out what level of support would be forthcoming from the present Trump administration.
All of those things are going to make independence that much easier.
And I think we are at its tipping point in history.
I mean, we have 100 and I'm well aware, as both as a political scientist and a lawyer, that there's 100 and some odd years of history where the U.S. has not overtly interfered in the internal affairs of Canada.
But that having been said, we think that there's a new administration, there's a new day.
And we think to the extent that President Trump is willing to support self-determination for Greenland, he should be even more willing to 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 premiers like Doug Ford threatening U.S. security of energy supply,
Discomfort Within Canada00:05:10
threatening export tariffs and cutting off U.S. oil and 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 Kearney.
Well, Jeffrey, it's very interesting to talk about these things.
And history, I don't know if it repeats itself, but it certainly rhymes, as they say.
And this discomfort within Canada predates Confederation.
I mean, 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, Alberta was allowed to go bankrupt by the country.
And I think a lot of the complaints from William Aberhart 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.
Will he inflame things such that Alberta, as Preston Manning says, secedes?
It's great to talk with you.
Thank you for answering my questions, which I'm trying to probe the state of things.
I 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, the list of potential voters.
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 either have a petition drive every year, to have a referendum vote every year until we leave Canada, or 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 Ontario and Quebec elect to be our colonial master.
So, I mean, that's where we're at.
We have a committed movement.
We're moving forward.
And 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 Rath, I introduced you as a lawyer and a troublemaker, and I think I was accurate.
And 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 I actually met Rennie Levesque when he came to Calgary, and I asked him about Western separatism.
He 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 I think one of the best Rennie Levesque anecdotes I heard was, you know, why did you hold a referendum when you knew you couldn't win?
And Levesque's response was, I have 16 billion very good reasons.
Oh, I didn't hear that.
Jeffrey Rath, great to talk to you.
We'll keep in touch.
All right.
You bet, Ezra.
Thanks for having me on.
Great to have it.
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 like they are truly at home in the country.
Quebec's dissatisfaction with Confederation certainly gets a lot of airtime and national attention.
But anytime Alberta feels abused or looked over, and I mentioned, for example, of course, there's not a single cabinet minister in Mark Carney's government from Alberta.
Not that there's much lumber to pick from for the cabinet.
We'll follow this story with interest.
Stay with us.
Your letters to me next.
Well, Jeffrey Rath is very interesting, and he's got a lot to say in...
And normally, I don't find it hard to get a word in edge-wise, but he's a good talker.
I like him.
I like him.
He's got confidence.
I'll give him that.
I worked with a guy who built a national 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.
Emergencies Act Controversy00:02:29
And it's hard work.
And 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 the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
I think that happened in less than a year.
Brexit was an enormous effort.
It took years.
Who knows?
But it's interesting.
We'll follow him.
We'll treat him fairly.
Here's some letters.
On Tamara Leach's unfortunate conviction yesterday, as well as Chris Barber's, Jana 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 Leach 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 of mischief.
I disagree with that for the reasons I've told you before, but the fact that the Emergencies Act was illegal wasn't actually the law under which she was charged.
Anthony F. talks about Paul Chiang, the liberal MP who called for the kidnapping of a rival and says, but Chang threatens an MP's life and walks free.
Yeah, I mean, how can, 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 concierges.
Paul Cheng threatens to kidnap someone, and tee hee, it was just a misspeaking 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 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 op-ed 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 Rath will be prophetic.