Uh, you know, like, what do you, what do you see? What do you feel today? Do you think, uh, I know nobody has a crystal ball and is going to go, Oh, this is the number, but, uh, are you hopefully optimistic or where you sit on, on what you've been seeing?

Well, I'm definitely optimistic.

I think there's two things that the polls miss.

One is that some of the strongest supporters of independence don't trust institutions in general and would never answer their phone for a pollster.

So not only would the pollsters not want to hear from them, but they're not going to give them any info.

The other big thing, too, is we've all talked to so many of the silent supporters who would never say that they support independence publicly.

They would never say they're going to vote option two on any sort of recorded thing of any kind because they have business interests.

Yeah, Matthew.

Everybody please stand for the Honourable Matt Rowley.

Why, thank you.

Dr. Matthew Rowley, I'm a fifth generation Albertan, and I can remember a time, and I'm not that old, when Alberta worked.

And when we can go back and say things were better than they are now.

It didn't take revolutionizing everything.

It didn't take having to burn down the whole system and rebuilding it.

What it did take was less Ottawa and more us.

Matt?

Uh, what have you heard over the course of, let's say, the few months from the public that may have swayed you or given you a little bit more insight to the pros and cons of the constitutions that you would prefer? Uh, let's start off with, uh, Matt this time.

Uh, I think the public tend to be very passionate, which is great.

Um, and they know what they want.

They know what they don't like, I think is the biggest thing.

We've seen how broken the current constitutional system is, and what you hear from a lot of people is, "No way, no how will we do the same thing that we have now." And I think we all agree with that, that, you know, even though I want a Westminster system, which is the same kind of system that we have now, I don't want this system because this is the worst iteration of a Westminster system.

So that fact that we can't just go on with the status quo is actually very important.

There are people who look at the way Canada supposedly works and realize that it is broken beyond repair.

... that when it comes down to having this, uh, conference, that the monarchy is not going to be, uh, represented or considered?

And also one of the key things with you, I know you're not opposed – to what I'm gonna call the Westminster style of government but you're more so opposed like again like to what I would say that Pierre Trudeau brought in right with the Charter of Rights and Freedom so maybe let's revisit that a little bit like okay so if what are you advocating for in terms of like okay if we become independent how would that still work with the Westminster system if I can frame it that way yeah because I found it interesting I never heard someone with your point of view

Yeah, our basic Westminster system, the Westminster style of government, there's over 30 countries that have a Westminster form of government, and all of them look different.

We had a fairly standard, fairly well-functioning Westminster-style system up until Pierre Trudeau changed it into essentially a Republican system that wears the Westminster system like a skin suit out of Silence of the Lambs, if you want a really creepy picture of it.

The old way of doing things is to have an oppositional legislature, the crown in Parliament, as it were, that is supreme, that the House of Commons and the Senate together make a supreme body that is responsible for making law for the people of the country.

And all of that is tied up with the Crown being the final reserve of powers holding the ultimate power that basically keeps the legislature in check.

It's a rarely used conventional type power where The convention is they don't interfere, but if everything goes really squirrelly and off the rails, they're there as a final safety pin to stop something bad from happening.

The court's role in a Westminster system is not to adjudicate whether the laws are constitutional, but to adjudicate cases based upon the law.

What are your comments on that? That's how I

Knowing the stories of what has happened in other places.

Yeah.

Alberta, to my mind, needs to be independent.

And I think it's for the good of all of Canada, actually.

It will make everyone else, their life easier as well.

They struggle with us because we're trying to go one direction and they're trying to go a different one.

Let's just have a happy separation, you know, without violence, without need for anything unpleasant.

And you're like, wait a second, that doesn't make any sense.