Ezra Levant at the UCP conference in Edmonton on December 1st reports Alberta’s separatist push gaining momentum if Ottawa’s pipeline deal fails. Premier Danielle Smith unveils a 48-hour energy agreement repealing federal anti-Alberta laws, suspending net-zero regulations, and allowing a 1M-barrel/day bitumen pipeline to Asia while freezing the carbon tax at $170 by 2030—later seeking cuts to $130. Delegates cheer sovereignty moves like the "Peterson Law" and gun seizure defiance but boo federal concessions, with separatism sentiment rising amid skepticism over the deal’s long-term benefits. Smith’s bold stance risks escalating Alberta’s independence bid if trust isn’t rebuilt. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, more than 4,000 Albertans gather at the United Conservative Party's convention.
The number one issue, not Canada, but possibly separating if this pipeline deal doesn't go forward.
It's December 1st, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you sensorious bug.
Oh, hi, everybody.
I am in the middle of an enormous conference in Edmonton.
It's the United Conservative Party of Alberta.
That's Danielle Smith's party.
There's a lot going on here.
Let me start by showing you some excerpts from the Premier's speech today.
My dear friends, thank you so much for that warm welcome.
I can't tell you how happy and energized I feel when I am with you.
Let me tell you, battling leftists and the mainstream media and other anti-Alberta forces on a daily basis can be exhausting for me and for our entire caucus.
And so to be here with you, to see your smiling faces and to hear your warm words of support and encouragement is just the fuel that I need and that all of our MLAs need to get back out there and keep on fighting.
So thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you.
Together we have stopped and driven back the extreme anti-energy movement in our country.
We have helped to turn the tide of national public opinion from being anti-oil and gas into a countrywide consensus that Alberta's energy resources are a national treasure that can and must be developed.
Those who had opposed us, including the former prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and his governing partner, the former federal NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, along with so many others who sought Alberta's economic demise.
They've seen their political careers come to an abrupt and dramatic end, including, I would add, former Trudeau environment minister Stephen Guibault.
He, of course, resigned from cabinet on Thursday after the announcement of the new energy deal that repealed several of the anti-Alberta laws that he created.
On behalf of all Albertans, Monsieur Guibault, we bid you adieu.
And that's right.
Just 48 hours ago, I had the opportunity to sign a monumental energy agreement for our province with Ottawa that will enable Alberta to double our oil production by 2035, build millions of barrels of new pipeline capacity, and unlock billions of investment in AI data centers powered by clean Alberta natural gas.
And this complete turnaround of Canadian policy direction and public opinion was unthinkable just a few short years ago.
No one thought it was possible.
one except right here in Alberta where we know that all things are indeed possible.
Now Alberta is winning and we will continue to win this battle for our freedom and provincial rights because we are on the right side of history and Albertans will not be denied our right to a prosperous future.
Now, I know full well that so many of you here today have been justifiably, like me, frustrated and angry with Ottawa.
I get it.
I get it.
Trust me.
I get it.
I hear you.
We have been abused and taken for granted repeatedly over the past decades.
But my friends, let's not throw in the towel and give up on our country just as the battle has turned in our favour and victory is in sight.
It is!
It is!
Not when our fellow Canadians, even those that may support differing political parties, are nonetheless supporting Alberta's vision for a prosperous, energy-rich nation with strong and sovereign provinces, building a Canada we can be proud of again.
Now is not the time to give up the fight.
Now is the time to double down and fight for both our province and our country because we Albertans are indeed the proudest of Canadians and we don't fight for the sake of fighting.
We don't look for conflict when there is an opportunity for freedom and peace and prosperity with our fellow Canadians.
That is all we've ever wanted.
Freedom and peace and prosperity.
Because Albertans are happiest when we are hard at work getting things done, solving problems, serving our communities, creating and innovating.
That is when we are truly at our best.
We want to lead this country towards a better and brighter future because we take great pride in that as a province.
All we need is a government in Ottawa to get out of the way and let us turn Canada into a thriving energy superpower with Alberta leading the way.
And this new Alberta-Ottawa energy agreement is a first step in trying to accomplish exactly that.
So let's take the win and charge full steam ahead because this agreement means the end of the punitive oil and gas emissions cap so our great energy producers can grow and thrive again.
This agreement, yes.
This agreement means the immediate suspension of the federal net zero power regulations in Alberta, which will stabilize our power grid.
Yep.
Throw open the doors for massive investments into AI data centers.
And this agreement includes a clear path to the construction of a 1 million barrel per day bitumen pipeline to Asian markets so that our province and our country are no longer dependent on just one customer to buy our most valuable resource.
This agreement also allows for needed exemptions to the oil tanker ban, an overhaul of the no-new pipeline law, C-69, and ensuring our energy companies are able to advertise their environmental leadership and efforts without fear of penalty.
And this agreement also means that Alberta can show the entire world that the solution to our environmental challenges does not entail capping productivity and growth in the oil and gas development.
Rather, it is to leverage the profitability of a strong oil and gas sector to invest in the very technologies that will solve the environmental challenges that we face.
Now, my friends, I am under no illusions.
This agreement is just the first step in this journey.
There is much hard work ahead of us.
And the federal government must earn back the trust of Albertans as we move through the next stages of this process.
After all, the people of Alberta have, of course, had the rug pulled out from under them too many times to count over the past 10 years.
So I will take the advice of a great U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, who said when dealing with a former adversary, trust but verify.
And on behalf of Albertans, I will be verifying and holding Ottawa accountable, as you know, every step of the way.
You can absolutely count on that.
But a new relationship and a new beginning needs a starting point, and this agreement, I hope, is that starting point.
So I invite each of you today to join me on this journey.
The Alberta Advantage is back, and all of Canada and the world has noticed and wants to be a part of it.
And let there be no doubt, no doubt, about how important immigration and interprovincial migration have been to our previous success.
New Albertans from other provinces and countries have been essential to our economic prosperity and rich culture.
For over 100 years, Alberta has had a history of healthy levels of primarily economic immigrants able to easily integrate into Alberta's economy and culture.
But that was upended by the last 10 years of what was effectively an open borders policy by Ottawa.
And Albertans of all ages, ethnicities, and immigration history have had quite enough.
We need an immigration policy that puts Albertans first.
And that is why our government will be taking primary control over our immigration system in the coming months and years ahead.
Using our constitutionally protected provincial rights, Alberta will return to a more stable number of primarily economic migrants so that newcomers come here to work and contribute as they have historically done, while Canadian citizens living in Alberta are given first priority to the jobs and the opportunities our economy creates.
And despite the continued hysterics of the NDP and their woke activists, Alberta will continue to march boldly forward with policies that promote freedom, save lives, and make our communities safe.
This government will fund, not defund, the police.
We will seek justice for victims, not excuses for the guilty.
We will replace enabling continued drug use for the addicted with providing treatment and a means to recovery.
We will lift up and support those struggling with mental health rather than giving them the means to end their lives because of it.
And while governments around the world seek to institutionalize the censorship of free speech, our government will forge an accelerated path in the opposite direction.
That's why last week our government, inspired by the attack on Dr. Jordan Peterson, as well as so many other doctors and lawyers and nurses and teachers and others, introduced legislation containing comprehensive free speech protections so that no professional will lose their license to practice due to their political beliefs or for not kowtowing to DEI and other destructive mandates.
You Thanks, guys.
That came from you.
That was your policy you passed last AGM.
We're calling it the Peterson Law, but we aren't stopping there.
I'm announcing today that next week our UCP government will be introducing a new motion under the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act that will, if passed in the legislature, instruct all provincial entities, including our municipalities and law enforcement agencies to refuse to enforce or prosecute under the federal gun seizure program.
Now the Sovereignty Act motion will also make it clear that these agencies will not enforce or prosecute Albertans defending their homes and families from intruders.
I got a little tip for low-life criminals out there.
If you don't want to get shot, don't break into someone's house.
It's really that simple, isn't it?
It really is.
We want our great men and women in law enforcement and our justice system to spend their precious time and effort going after criminals, not farmers, not ranchers or sports shooters, nor Albertans defending their families and their homes.
Imagine that.
Well, it was an amazing speech in that it was very strong and it touched on things that other Conservatives have been shy to talk about, including immigration.
Very interesting how Danielle Smith said she would use her jurisdictional powers not to stop immigration itself, which is not something that a province can do, but can change the class of immigrants that Alberta wants and to not put immigrants ahead of Canadian citizens in terms of jobs or benefits.
Very interesting.
She also talked about transgenderism.
And of course, a lot of her talk was about the idea that Alberta simply needs another oil pipeline, despite the fact that many Alberta undoers would seek to stop it.
After her speech, Sheila Gunread and I had a chance to put a couple of questions to the Premier.
Here's how that looked.
Hi, Premier Ash from Levant from Rebel News.
First of all, I just want to say thanks to you for allowing a spectrum of journalists to ask you questions that's different than your federal liberal counterparts.
My question is about Nutrient, the Saskatchewan company that chose to export through the United States in part because of the political risks associated with going through VC.
There were some other issues too, but have you contemplated if Premier Eby and the extremists and just the cost impositions of this MOU deter a pipeline from going west, would you consider a pipeline going south through the United States or even reigniting the Keystone XL pipeline that has not only Donald Trump's support, but allegedly the Liberal government's support?
Pipeline Politics00:05:29
Do you have a plan B?
I don't want to give up on Plan A, which is to get a pipeline to the northwest BC coast, because quite frankly, that was the one we always should have built.
That was the one that would have opened up the most new markets for us, and I think it's the one that is going to be the most profitable from a point of view of being able to build new lines.
We'll continue doing that work.
When it comes, there's a couple ways I look at Nutrient's decision.
I have spoken with the Heisla band who manages the Kitimat export facility, and they were disappointed.
They would have liked to have been considered on that.
I know that they're not that keen on a bitumen pipeline, but they were keen on developing their infrastructure for everything else.
So I'll make sure to raise that with Premier Mo to see if there are future opportunities to look at the potential for Kinaman.
The second thing I'd say is it's pretty clear that a lot of the problems that we have in Canada are related to work stoppages.
Airlines, ports, rail lines.
It's been just a rotation, one after the other, after the other.
And I noticed with some interest in the federal budget that they are creating a mechanism to order binding arbitration with limits around policy and around the potential cost for governments.
I'm looking at that legislation, thinking if you can get work stoppages completed faster and still be able to have a mechanism to resolve them through binding arbitration that doesn't leave an open end, that may create the kind of certainty that we're looking for.
I know that when I was talking with our federal counterparts, I said, you got to do something, because I felt like every day or every other day for a solid six-month period, I was asking for them to end one strike or another.
So we've got to fix that.
If we're going to be a reliable supplier, we have to make sure our supply chains are secure, are truly secure.
Thanks.
Sheila Gunread, Rebel News.
Premier Smith, I want to ask you about the increase in the industrial carbon tax in the MOU.
It's something that the federal conservatives say is a deterrent to investment.
I think our competitors internationally also feel it's a deterrent to investment.
OPEC doesn't have it.
Russia doesn't have it.
The United States doesn't have it.
Of course, Brookfield is heavily invested in pipelines in other parts of the world.
How do you reconcile that with encouraging pipeline investment to Alberta?
Is there a private sector pipeline company that is even floating the notion of investing in Alberta?
Well, I'll deal with those in two parts.
So I guess the first one I would say is we negotiated a decrease to the carbon tax because it was slated to go up to $170 by 2030.
And we persuaded the Prime Minister that that was just going to be crushing to our industry and we needed to moderate that.
And so we had frozen it to send a message that we just didn't think it could go up at that rate.
And now we'll have a negotiation to see how quickly we get to 130 and what factors we would look at.
I would encourage you maybe to talk to private industry because we've had an industrial carbon price since 2007.
And you've got a number of companies that are investing in emissions reduction technologies who need a certain carbon price to make that worthwhile.
And then you've got other companies who are payers.
And so there is a bit of the push and the pull: there's a price that's going to make sure that we do not dampen investment, but there's also a price that we need to have to motivate more of the investment in the emissions reduction technology.
When we went out and consulted on this, when we froze the price at 95, we'd actually considered rolling it back.
And enough of the consultation feedback came back saying keep it where it is.
But there is, I think, an upper limit to how far we can go and how fast, and that's what we'll negotiate.
When it comes to pipelines, I'll tell you: the way pipelines get built is they go out and do an open season and they say, is there anyone willing to pledge barrels?
And when we had an emissions cap, the answer would be no, because what's the point?
Because you're just going to have to shut in production by 2035 if those rules were in place.
If you have a tanker ban, what's the point if you can't load the tankers up?
And so with the acceptance of a carbon, with the elimination of the emissions cap, we believe that some of those open seasons are going to go ahead and that we'll start seeing private proponents come forward.
The one I'm looking at as probably the first project is Enbridge's mainline expansion.
They want to expand 400,000 barrels.
The next one I would look at would be the Trans Mountain pipeline.
Even David Eby and I agree on that one.
I think they've said that they could go up 360,000 barrels.
And then I know Southpoe is working on using the old Keystone assets that they acquired from TC Energy to see if they can get a pipeline selled.
So we've been in active discussions with the United States to see what kind of opportunity there might be to do more pipelines going south, as well as Doug Ford, how we might be able to get more going east.
I read today that even Le Gault, Francois Legault, said that maybe a pipeline to Quebec wouldn't be impossible.
So the entire attitude towards oil and gas development has changed, even in Quebec.
And a little more work to do in British Columbia, but we're going to continue to do that work.
Well, we're on a lunch break at the Alberta United Conservative Party conference.
Very interesting keynote speech by the Premier.
Lots of applause lines.
Keynote Controversies00:11:00
For example, when she said she was going to call for reduced immigration, when she said she was going to crack down on biological men in women's places, including sports.
But there were some raised eyebrows, including some gentle booing when the topic of the memorandum of understanding with the federal liberals came up.
I'm going to chat a little bit with two of my colleagues to see what they think of the conference.
So far, Sheila, you were there in the big pit where 4,000 delegates were listening to the Premier.
It's clear that they like her.
They're just worried that she might be getting bamboozled and hornswoggled on the MOU, that pipeline deal.
They're not pop.
The pipeline deal is not popular with the grassroots.
You can see that in the policy book, the resolutions that are proposed to hit the floor today, later on today, most of them deal with net zero.
They deal with carbon taxes.
They deal with federal government overreach.
So the grassroots, I think, is fundamentally against the hike in the industrial carbon tax that is attached to that MOU.
But I have seen the mainstream media reporting that Danielle Smith herself is being booed.
And I completely reject that.
She's very popular.
Lots of applause.
They're booing the treatment of Alberta by Canada at the hands of the federal government.
That's what those boos are about.
Yeah, I saw some of those headlines, very deceptive.
One of the things I'm enjoying, Angelika, is how many independent journalists are here.
That would not have been the case even five years ago.
Not just Rebel News, and I think we've got six people on the ground here, but I see our friends from Juneau, True North.
I see Western Standard, and even people who I don't quite know.
I think that independent journalism is changing and breaking the monopoly held by those regime journalists.
What's your view?
It's amazing to see these independent voices.
We have seen a few mainstream media here as well, but you can see that it's the independent media that is going around, really talking to the people and getting the other side of the story.
Because what the mainstream media here is going to do, they're going to frame this a certain way.
But here we give the voice to the people here, the members here, and everyone's happy to see us here.
Yeah, you know what?
There are some regime journalists here, including from the CBC.
I'm not going to say they're sullen, but they're definitely their own mission is to undermine and to critique.
And I'm quite certain that they're not doing genuine streeters, as we call them, because let's be honest, the regime media is despised by these folks.
Sheila, I got a question for you.
You know, during the Cold War, Richard Nixon was the president, and he was known as a staunch anti-communist.
I mean, he really, that was one of his characteristics people knew about him.
Yet he was the one who secretly did a deal with Communist China, the most authoritarian, abusive regime in the world, to get them to flip, to break away from the Soviet Union, and to be open to the West.
It was a strategic move to split the communist bloc.
And there was a saying, only Nixon could go to China.
The meaning is everyone knew that he was not a sympathizer.
Everyone knew he hated the commies.
So if Nixon said it was okay, you could trust him.
Do you see what I mean?
Is that what's going on here?
Danielle Smith is such a strong Albertan.
She's a sovereignty strengthener.
She's a woke buster.
So if she talks to Mark Carney, is it like Nixon going to China?
She's really the only person who could be trusted to do it.
I think maybe that was her intent, but I think a lot of people are perfectly able to read that MOU and understand what it says.
It says that Albertans will pay an enhanced industrial carbon tax for maybe nothing, for a pipeline that may never materialize.
And when you see that the federal conservatives are coming out against that enhanced carbon tax, and the former Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, has come out against the MOU.
A lot of people understand what that MOU means, and it's actually a lot of nothing except burdens for Albertans.
So I do trust that Daniel Smith has Alberta's best interests at heart, but I think she's given up too much here.
I mean, I think back to Jason Kenney, who I used to know quite well.
He was always one eye on Ottawa.
He was always, yeah, and so I don't think anyone would have trusted Kenny with his MOU.
Angelika, you've been spending a lot of time with the different delegates.
They're all called United Conservative members.
They're all called Conservatives.
It's really the merger of the old wild rose and what used to be called the PCs.
How many people here are actually independence-minded Albertans who, if this project fails, would be for independence?
I can't speak for the ministers, the MLA specifically, but I do think if this project fails, the independence movement is going to skyrocket because it's going to be a bit of a failed promise on behalf of the UCP and Danielle Smith.
And they've put so much trust in her.
And I really think that it's going to be the breaking point because right now it's already starting to stir up.
But if she has a fail promise as big as that, I think it's going to definitely change the movement.
I've talked to a ton of grassroots members over the day and a half that I've been here.
Not a single one has said that they are not independence-minded.
Not a single one has said, look, I don't like the separatist sentiment that is at the AGM.
And it is.
The separatist sentiment is really the story of the AGM.
It's the MOU that's hanging in the air and then the separatists.
This is, I think, a very strong showing for the Alberta Prosperity Project.
It sounds like they're set to take over a lot of board positions.
And that's an advocacy group.
We've been affiliated.
We've done events with them, and they're more hardline.
Yeah, they're sort of the group that's advancing the conversation about independence and addressing the question about, you know, what happens if this, how do we do that?
You know, they're participating in the board elections.
They're very organized at this convention, and I think they're the underlying story in all of this, and they will ultimately hold Danielle Smith to account if nothing comes of that MOU.
Sorry, Danielle Smith actually said yesterday, and she got booed for it, but she said Canada still works in response to this new deal.
Now I want to disagree slightly with what you said and it's a little different than what you said too.
Here's my take.
Danielle Smith is doing as much as anyone could do to get a deal.
And I think she knows that this deal is not perfect.
For example, she talked about the nine bad laws and this addresses seven of them.
So she's saying, look, you're putting a little water in your wine, but you're getting, you know, it's the nature of any negotiation.
She's clearly gone as far as she could to get as much as she could.
And here's my point.
If it fails, if it doesn't go ahead, if no pipeline proponent comes forward, if it's killed by some extremist group, then Angelika, I think the Premier could say, you know me, you saw me.
I went further and harder than anyone in history to get a deal.
I tried, I compromised, I gave up as much.
In fact, my own party booed the deal.
The deal failed.
So now we go the other way.
So in fact, and I have no inside knowledge, I've never talked to her about this.
Having gone as hard as she could to get a deal, if it doesn't happen, I think she could theoretically say, I go, I'm on plan B now.
I'm for independence now.
It's just a possibility because she has shown she'll do anything for Confederation, but it might fail.
That's right.
Danielle Smith has honestly been one of our best premiers behind the province.
She's delivered on so many things, the gender issues, women in sports, so many things.
Today she also announced a bunch of other things.
And I think she's been a leader when it comes to actually advancing the conservative movement and not being sort of a fake conservative like we see in Ontario.
And that's the difference between booing the pipeline proposal and booing the Premier.
I think this crowd is extremely, in fact, they support her.
Last word to you, Sheila.
Angelika mentioned a few of the other issues that were touched upon in the speech.
There were firearms issues.
Why don't you just quickly go through a couple of the other things?
Because it's not just about the memorandum of understanding on the pipelines.
Transgenderism is a big thing.
Fighting for school immigration.
What are some of the other things?
Huge applause.
Standing ovation for the Jordan Peterson law.
Wait, explain that for a second.
So the Jordan Peterson law prevents professional organizations from attacking their members based on their political beliefs.
Which is what happened to Jordan Peterson.
Which is exactly what happened to Jordan Peterson.
Now, that didn't happen in Alberta, but it is in reaction to something that happened in Ontario.
And we know during COVID, many of the doctors face consequences from the College of Physicians and Surgeons because of their outspokenness and skepticism on COVID.
I should tell you that I was actually consulted.
The Justice Minister of Alberta put together a group of people who had been hassled in their professional organization.
And they invited me because about 20 years ago, when I was a member of the lost side of Alberta, there were more than 20 fake complaints sent in over my politics.
So I have one drop of paternity over what happened, but they've been planning this free speech move for a while.
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that in my own teeny tiny way, I mean, it was certainly nothing on the scale of what happened to Jordan Peterson, but some of these changes they're announcing, they do take months or years to work it through.
So I interrupted you.
No.
And then I think the second most popular or maybe equally popular two policies was that our RCMP would not be participating in the federal government's gun grab.
She would take additional steps.
We don't know what that's going to look like, if it's going to look like what they're doing in Saskatchewan by creating a gun grab approval agency and then not funding it or...
We're doing an interview right now.
I'll say hi in a minute.
So we don't know what that's going to look like, but that she's taking additional steps to protect law-abiding firearms owners in Alberta.
Steps to Protect Gun Owners00:03:22
It's a huge issue for Albertans, but also on the issue of self-defense.
We've seen...
There was a great line she had.
Yeah, if you're a dirtbag, don't break the law in Alberta is what she said.
She's something like, if you don't want to be shot, don't break into it.
It was sort of amazing.
Yeah, and so, you know, that addresses the problems of the federal government with their catch and release laws, with their, you know, taking away mandatory minimums and changing sentencing guidelines based on systemic racism, which is one of the things that they did around gang-related offenses.
So protecting our ability to protect our families in our own homes.
So huge applause for that.
Well, very interesting.
I'm so glad I'm here.
The first thing that struck me was how big it is.
Like just enormous.
It's smaller than last year, though, by about 1,500 people.
Well, that people last year.
That's a great point.
I'm trying to think of any other province where any other political party would generate this kind of turnout.
I don't know, maybe Pierre Polyev's federal conservative convention in the new year will, but this is just astounding.
Thanks to you guys and the rest of the Rebel team, we are in effect here.
It's wonderful to reconnect with our grassroots supporters.
Although Rebel News is officially headquartered in Toronto, our heart is in the West.
I myself consider myself a Western boy, even though I'm in exile.
It's great to see everybody here, and this remains the province most dedicated to fighting for freedom.
And that's why we love it.
Back to you.
And by you, I mean me.
Show for
Sheila Gunrid and Her Team00:00:16
today.
We've got more coverage.
I've just given you a bit of a smattering, but we had a great team on the ground.
I think about half a dozen Rebels were here.
Sheila Gunrid, our chief reporter, Angelika and Sydney from Calgary, as well as Lise Merle, who came in from Saskatchewan, the sister province, to Alberta.