Central Canada

Reform had that.

And so, yeah, I've been on some talk shows in central Canada, and they seem appalled that Alberta's having this referendum.

I say, well, just understand, like, there is this concept called democracy.

Like, the Greeks actually kind of developed it, and, you know, Alberta's a democracy.

This may appear like a foreign concept to you in...

Central Canada, but it's actually democracy.

And in a democracy, it's not considered an unpardonable political sin from time to time to ask the people themselves what they might think of something.

Exactly.

So I think those three cultures have an understanding amongst them and something that they really share and try to support each other when they can.

But for the Mi'kmaq people, They're still going back to try to do the work to understand, well, what is authentic to us to make sure that they're not just borrowing from something that might be more common to indigenous communities in Western Canada or Central Canada.

But they're doing that important work.

And so for us, in any way that we can be strong allies and support them, We try to do so, and that has included so far everything from supporting a youth culinary camp for Mi'kmaq youth to try to plant the seed of getting them interested in exploring their culinary talents.

Obviously, we're into a full-blown terror fight now with counter-terrorists coming from Canada.

And I guess my frustration, Evan, and wrote about it on Facebook, was hearing Premier Ford and others in central Canada and some in western Canada, actually, including, I think, Menchie in Alberta, the NDP leader there, saying that oil, western Canadian oil, for example, and potash, should be the target of our own tariffs.

We should tariff it that we might

want to levy an export tax.

I may be attractive to engage in these talking points, but they're sometimes free of facts.

For example, all of the Western Canadian oil that Ontario does

get, and remember Central Canada gets oil from

different countries as well, the United States and some OPEC countries, but the oil from Western Canada that Ontario does get, all of it comes through a pipeline that goes first into the United States.

Get our products to Europe, get them to Asia, get them to India, get them anywhere someone wants to buy them.

For years, politicians in central Canada have treated energy as some dirty Alberta obsession.

Now, suddenly they're discovering that depending overwhelmingly on one foreign market might be dangerous.

Economic independence isn't saying, "Kiss my ass." Economic independence is, is having somewhere else to sell your stuff after you say it, and that's the part Doug Ford seems to be missing.

We begged Ottawa to understand that selling energy into one market was a strategic vulnerability.

Build west, build east, get to Tidewater, sell LNG, sell oil, find Asian customers, find European customers, diversify.

And for years, Central Canada has treated that argument as if it was some periocu- perocu- Alberta complaint.

Now suddenly, everyone has discovered the danger of depending on the United States.

He's been playing this trade war up for 18 months, and look at him sitting in the polls.

Central Canada laps it right up.

They say, "Well, yeah, sure.

He's, he's screwed up this, and he's fucked up that, and he hasn't bothered dealing with this, and he hasn't accomplished that.