Oct 26, 2026 · 55 min · 14 segments
Twenty-five years ago they rewired the province’s political thinking with their landmark “Alberta Agenda,” aka the “firewall” letter: a manifesto for the premier to assert sovereignty within a…
Ken BoessenkoolGuest
Ted MortonGuest
Brian LilleyHost
We'll get into where Danielle Smith is and your claims about the UCP in a moment, but I want to pick up on something Ted said and get both your thoughts.
Ted, you said that this has doubled over the last 10 years due to how the last decade has played out, and if it's more the same, that it would double again.
Separatist sentiment or anger or the send a message crowd that Ken was talking about, how much of that has been driven by Justin Trudeau, who's been gone for a year and a half, almost two years now.
But was this... angst all driven by Trudeau and how he treated Western Canada and Alberta in particular? Is it a more general sense? Was it deflated and lower than you wanted because Trudeau's now gone and Mark Carney's at least making overtures even if he isn't delivering?
Well, the underlying discontent and unhappiness with Alberta's relationship with, with, uh, Ottawa and the liberal party obviously is much older than, uh, much deeper than just, uh, Justin Trudeau.
You know, we've started with talking about the firewall back to 2001, but there's no question the Trudeau decade, uh, exacerbated that, uh, The anti-oil and gas, putting climate change ahead of everything else, and the cancellation of how many different pipelines, Energy East, Northern Gateway, all of that had a very devastating effect, not just on the Alberta government revenues, but on the economy in Alberta.
Now, despite that decade, that, you know, Trudeau was going to lose to the Conservatives and Pierre Polliver, and that Alberta was to have a—the Western Canada would be part of a majority coalition government again.
And so—but there was a new spike in— I'd say Alberta alienation unhappiness when suddenly that all disappeared, ironically, because of Donald Trump.
Trump came in and suddenly Mark Carney appeared to be the new champion for Canada, and Pierre never recovered from that.
There's a lot of anti-vaccination sentiment in Alberta, particularly rural Alberta and small-town Alberta.
Ken, how much of it, in your view, was driven by Trudeau? And I'll throw this in there as well.
I know I've spoken to some Albertans who scoff at the idea that Mark Carney is an Albertan.
We'll get into where Danielle Smith is and your claims about the UCP in a moment, but I want to pick up on something Ted said and get both your thoughts.
Ted, you said that this has doubled over the last 10 years due to how the last decade has played out, and if it's more the same, that it would double again.
Separatist sentiment or anger or the send a message crowd that Ken was talking about, how much of that has been driven by Justin Trudeau, who's been gone for a year and a half, almost two years now.
But was this... angst all driven by Trudeau and how he treated Western Canada and Alberta in particular? Is it a more general sense? Was it deflated and lower than you wanted because Trudeau's now gone and Mark Carney's at least making overtures even if he isn't delivering?
Well, the underlying discontent and unhappiness with Alberta's relationship with, with, uh, Ottawa and the liberal party obviously is much older than, uh, much deeper than just, uh, Justin Trudeau.
You know, we've started with talking about the firewall back to 2001, but there's no question the Trudeau decade, uh, exacerbated that, uh, The anti-oil and gas, putting climate change ahead of everything else, and the cancellation of how many different pipelines, Energy East, Northern Gateway, all of that had a very devastating effect, not just on the Alberta government revenues, but on the economy in Alberta.
Now, despite that decade, that, you know, Trudeau was going to lose to the Conservatives and Pierre Polliver, and that Alberta was to have a—the Western Canada would be part of a majority coalition government again.
And so—but there was a new spike in— I'd say Alberta alienation unhappiness when suddenly that all disappeared, ironically, because of Donald Trump.
Trump came in and suddenly Mark Carney appeared to be the new champion for Canada, and Pierre never recovered from that.
There's a lot of anti-vaccination sentiment in Alberta, particularly rural Alberta and small-town Alberta.
Ken, how much of it, in your view, was driven by Trudeau? And I'll throw this in there as well.
I know I've spoken to some Albertans who scoff at the idea that Mark Carney is an Albertan.
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