Sorry, can you repeat that?

Is that possible? $2.1 billion in unexplained payments to eight officials and administrators.

And these findings included unexplained credit card bills, cash advances, and casino-related withdrawal.

So this was not a minor bookkeeping discrepancy.

This is a serious warning sign about public money, weak controls, and the need for reliable consequences.

And remember, the Indian Act is the foundation that's facilitating all of this.

Let's talk about Frog Lake First Nation, which is near where I live, northeastern Alberta.

I mean, that says something about our assumptions, doesn't it, Leighton Grey? That somehow we don't have a higher vision to engage all people including indigenous people in the mainstream of our economy i mean how do we do that

Tell us about it.

Well, you know, I've been trying to make sense of what we're seeing in the news because, as you said, Corey, Canada sort of finds itself in the middle of two fights that really it feels like we shouldn't be in at all.

You know, back in 1943, there was an American intelligence study which found that the Nazis were using certain tactics to stir up the public.

And these will sound very familiar to your viewers and listeners.

Here's what they were.

Keep the public angry.

Never admit fault.

Why does our closeness to Europe concern you specifically, Leighton?

But do you think that there is a harm in acknowledging that our history is not black and white?

Well, I think there is a harm in treating our history as though it's black and white because the harm that it does is that we lose the truth.

We lose the truth about what kind of country Canada actually was and what it is because it has been a great country.

Even though we're a young country, there are very few countries as young as Canada that have made as many great contributions to the world, both domestically and internationally.

And we lose track of that, we lose sight of that when we don't tell the truth about our country, when we only tell this awful narrative.

And my concern and the reason why I try and draw attention to this is because there's no question that this is all propagandized.

This is the propaganda, the story that we're being told.

What do you think is driving this increase in hostility from both sides?

No.

Absolutely true.

Absolutely accurate.

And the other thing that people need to understand is that Mr. Trump offered Canada preferred status on every possible trade level.

In fact, the deal that Donald Trump has offered Canada and that Mark Carty rejected is better than the free trade deal that pre-existed Trump that he never negotiated.

and every time they've gone back to the table, Mr. Trump has sweetened the deal, and every time Canada walks away, and it's exactly for the reason that you say, Chris, is that the trade war is sort of the surface picture.

It's the manifestation of a deeper issue that's going on, and I understand Donald Trump's presidency as, I think he sees himself and the sort of legacy of his presidency as, is to do to the Chinese Communist Party what Mr. Reagan did to the Soviet Union.

How is that all playing out? How does Canada, how does Europe, how does Central and South America, how does this all fit in with what the left wants to do and what what freedom fighters want to do?

That's a great

point, Jason.

You're so right.

There's an adage that politics is downstream of culture.

So is law.

You're right.

Our laws are supposed to be a reflection of the values, the shared values of a society.

uh layton

So I'm real excited to have the conversation with you about this topic.

Yeah, well, I've been getting in a lot of trouble publicly for speaking about, let's say, unorthodox views about Indigenous rights, Indigenous history and things like that.

But really what I'm against, as you guys know, is I'm against lies.

And so I thought I'd write a piece of sort of debunking this whole concept of Turtle Island.

What does Turtle Island mean? Well, it derives from a collection of Indigenous creation stories, especially within their Iroquois tradition.

And in those teachings, the idea is that the earth was formed on the back of a giant turtle, and over time it became the landmass we now call North America.

And for many Indigenous peoples, and especially Indigenous rights activists, it's a symbol of identity, ancestry, and spiritual connection to the land.

So how do we start educating people the truth, Leighton, in something that is so fundamental full of guilt and, you know, words and, you know, did you get what I'm saying? I'm going to go ahead and leave that for you two to discuss those two questions.

money for

justice.

Alberta originally agreed to do that, and then Danielle Smith revoked that, I think, quite properly.

Yet a similar situation you guys might remember during COVID, where we got lockdown measures in every single province.

And part of the reason why we got them in every single province is because the federal government said that they were going to withhold money for health transfers unless lockdown measures were imposed.

So these are examples of where the federal government actually abuses its ability to to create money for provinces to use for social programs.

And so question eight sort of asks, should we opt out of these federal programs? For me, this is a very simple answer.

should

Sure.

Sure.Well, let, let's, let's start with this.

Let, let's say just for the sake of argument that what these chiefs were really interested in was helping indigenous peoples and r- and raising their, you know, their economic standards, right? That, that, that looks like on the surface what they're t- what they're talking about.

At least that's what they're saying publicly, right? Well, let's look at the data.

In British Columbia, uh, between 2015 and 2019, the individual income of indigenous peoples living on reserve rose significantly, almost $5,000 a year.

It's risen now to $26,800 a year, uh, and which is not far off what, uh, what, what the median is or the mean is for people who are non-indigenous.

Interestingly, indigenous peoples who live off reserve who are not represented by these chiefs do better.

But when it comes to, you know, truth and reconciliation, then what would you, what would you point people to, Leighton, as, you know, like this, this is what needs to change?

Now, how is this so offensive? Is it just because, well, we can claim intergenerational trauma and that somehow this is just totally unacceptable to even have-

have-...

these, quote, "truth" questioned by anybody anywhere or any time.

Mm-hmm.

What's going on here, Leighton? Well, there's no question that, um, this is being used as a political cudgel.

And, uh, the- I can tell you as an Indigenous person, the greatest enemy, uh, for all time of Indigenous peoples is, is, is the, is the federal government, the, the...

I should say the Crown, uh- Mm ...

Yes

You know, Leighton, welcome to the show.

Oh, thanks.

It's great to be back.

You're right, Corey.

Nationalism is sort of a dirty little word.

It used to be a good word.

It used to be something that was a uniting feature.

You know what I'm

Yeah.

And so th- there's a lot of different, uh, ways to approach this.

But by any metric, the economic policies of our federal government w- in the Trudeau era and continuing with Mr. Carney and who seems by all accounts and as all the evidence points to, he's come in to finish the job that Mr. Trudeau started, this economic plan for Canada is simply not working.

And, and so we're left with, uh, with, you know, kind of a, a question.

Well, are these guys just in- completely incompetent as economic managers, or, or is this all being done by design? Is, is Canada a Petri dish for globalism f- an experiment in, in the...

in what will be the post-nation state? And what I say to people about the post-nation state is that the post-nation state begins where the Canada that we know and love ends, and that's, that's really, really scary.

But the economics of it, uh, are really crucial, and they sort of hit, uh, this, this powder keg, this point, uh, of rupture, to use Mr. Carney's word, in these trade talks with the United States.

Mm-hmm

So,

yeah.

I think there's a few things going on there.

I think that in Alberta, we had more lawyers.

There were more of us, like Jeff Rath is one, myself, and others.

Obviously, someone like Sean Buckley, who's involved with the National Citizens Inquiry.

We seem to have a... a collection of lawyers, more of us in Alberta, who were willing to take up the fight.

Those, when he said those things, see, that revealed to me the strategy Very simply, and that's exactly what this country has become because you have leaders that don't stand for

Leighton, do you think the courts are gonna solve our problems?

No, I don't think that we can expect, and Bruce put this really well when he said, you know, ultimately, Who do we have to blame? You know, it's a matter of taking civic responsibility.

Although I would say I would disagree slightly with what Sean said in that we have we still have courts.

Right.

And so obviously, my opinion is biased.

This is biased.

my profession and what I do.

If you make them powerless instead and then list the specific exceptions, then you got a

Do you agree with Judge Brian Giesbrecht's thesis that, golly, the judges are becoming perhaps a bit too political in this country, as we just discussed?

Well, Brian is right, as he usually is on these types of topics, but I think that the problem is even deeper than what he's saying in terms of having a conservative versus a progressive or liberal on the court.

The problem is endemic, and I go back to something that Baron Denning said, one of the great British judges of the 20th century said that the keystone of the rule of law has been the independence of judges.

And it's only the respect in which we can make any real separation of powers.

And that comment was echoed by one of the great judges of our Supreme Court in the 20th century, Justice Bora Laskin, former chief judge.

When he was going in 1982, he said, he phrased the independence of judges as complete abstention from political commentary.

So that was the standard before the Charter.

So Leighton, would you agree that judicial activism is kind of a key centerpiece of what we're talking about today? And are there other examples that come to your mind that are of concern?

Your thoughts, Layton.

Well, I think, um, I'm gonna go back a little bit into Canadian constitutional history to help people understand maybe the 10,000-foot view of maybe what Danielle Smith is thinking about.

So Canada, as you know, is a very large country.

Uh, we're huge.

We're the second-largest country in the world, and everywhere you go in Canada, the people are great, and it's beautiful.

But it's different.

Uh, there's, there are differences in language, in culture, in cuisine, and there are things that bind us together.

the referendum is the next thing coming for Albertans of like, you need to be involved in this.