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Danielle Smith, wannabe tyrant
418 Plays2 years ago
Law professor Martin Olszynski joins Duncan Kinney to talk about the unique danger Danielle Smith and her proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act poses to democracy.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Recommendations
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey folks, Duncan Kinney here, host of The Progress Report. This is the part of the intro where we talk about the podcast network that we're a part of, and I have to say we're really lucky to be a part of the Harbinger Media Network. There are far too many dope left-wing podcasts to name off here that are a part of this project, but the latest pod from Harbinger Society Presents is one I want to recommend. It features host Andre Goulet speaking with Toronto Star columnist Rick Salutin, who explains why Pierre Poliev's pledge to make Canada the freest nation on Earth
00:00:29
Speaker
may just be the dumbest campaign promise on Earth. If you like what we do, please support us. And now, onto the show.
Podcast Welcome and Location Details
00:00:49
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, recording today here in Amiskwichiwa Skygun, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty Six territory on the banks of the mighty Kasiska-Saw, or the North Saskatchewan River.
Criticism of the Alberta Sovereignty Act
00:01:03
Speaker
Joining us today is his friend of the pod, Martin Olshinsky, a law professor from the University of Calgary. And I believe this is your second appearance, Martin. Is that right? That sounds about right, Duncan.
00:01:13
Speaker
And I see you've moved on from being Alberta's premier expert on the Allen inquiry to now being one of the biggest critics of Daniel Smith's proposed Alberta sovereignty act. And really when we're talking about the Alberta sovereignty act, we're essentially talking about the only thing that the UCP leadership race is now about. So welcome. Welcome to the podcast, Martin. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm all right. Yeah. I think I'm, you know, it's interesting. Um,
00:01:40
Speaker
moving from the inquiry into this space has actually been pretty seamless in the sense that they're of course related and one really helps set the stage for and really build support for the kind of things that we're seeing coming out of Daniel Smith's camp.
00:01:59
Speaker
But I'll say also that I would love to go back to what you might consider the slow food movement of societal catastrophes, things like climate change and maybe an ecological degradation. That stuff at least seems a little bit slower paced than what we're dealing with here, but at the same time, I can't seem to stop thinking about it, so here we are.
00:02:22
Speaker
Well, that's why I want to have you on. I think you have done some very interesting writing and thinking on the subject of the Alberta Sovereignty Act. And like, look, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a legal expert by any stretch of the imagination. I do not even play one on TV. But I think of all the people out there who have thought about this issue, you come from a background which, again, you have dealt with and thought about prior conservative Alberta politicians kind of incursions into the rule of law and into kind of like
00:02:51
Speaker
tyrannical behavior, and here we are right now. So you have been a vocal critic of this proposed legislation from the beginning. But just recently, Daniel Smith put out some quote unquote clarifications around the Alberta Sovereignty Act. But before we even get into the clarifications, what are the broad strokes? Can you walk us through what Daniel Smith is actually proposing here?
Canada's Constitutional Framework Explained
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, so what she's proposing, so I think as background, we need to have a little crash course in constitutional law. So Canada's constitution, because we are a federation, very quickly the issue came up, like, OK, if we're going to have provincial governments and federal governments, who is responsible for what? And so then section 91 and section 92 are the main provisions that divide
00:03:45
Speaker
essentially like these responsibilities. And so when we're talking about this area of law, we actually talk about the division of power, right? So section 91 essentially lists a bunch of things and it says the federal government, parliament can pass laws in relation to these kinds of things. And there you'll find things like the criminal law, you'll find things like navigation shipping, you'll find things like bankruptcy,
00:04:09
Speaker
Um, and then section 92 sets out the things that the provincial government can pass laws about. And so those are things like property and civil rights, um, local works and matters of a local nature and that kind of stuff. Right. So the list resource development, right? Like, well, then exactly 92 a in particular, which was added in 1984.
00:04:34
Speaker
Um, for instance, like specifically refers to, you know, the development of natural resources, you know, there's, and there's some, there's, there's a pretty strong grounds for arguing that a lot of that provision really just restated what was already the case, but then it actually did, it did provide some additional powers around taxation of exports and that kind of stuff or of resources. But, but so those are our, that's our basic framework. And, and so you wouldn't be surprised to hear, I don't think I, you know, that.
00:05:05
Speaker
As much as each of those lists, 91 and 92, the Constitution refers to them as being exclusive heads of power. But they're not exclusive in the sense that they create these watertight compartments where there's no ability for overlap between the federal and provincial governments. There is inevitably going to be overlap. For instance, Parliament has jurisdiction over fish and fish habitat.
00:05:30
Speaker
You can't really build anything from a natural resource context without having some kind of impact on fish and fish habitat. Certainly, when we're thinking about classic things like mines, we might even know oil sands, we might talk about it. Massive oil sands projects, yes. Exactly, right? Of course, the provincial government sets the policy at once.
00:05:52
Speaker
when it's talking about regulating oil sands from a, you know, from a royalty perspective, from a mine development perspective, but those same operators have to deal with, for instance, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and get permits from them.
Challenges to Judicial and Legislative Powers
00:06:05
Speaker
And that's just the way it is. There's overlap there very clearly. But Ms. Smith,
00:06:11
Speaker
would like us to go back and would like Burns to think that that's not the case, that really any time the federal government does anything that might influence or interfere with provincial policies and preferences, that that is somehow unconstitutional. And in particular here, she's talking about things like the carbon price, which the Supreme Court has upheld as falling within that section 91. She has issues with the Impact Assessment Act, which is going currently to the Supreme Court
00:06:42
Speaker
was found unconstitutional by the Alberta Court of Appeal, but of course, has actually was first found to be constitutional as a concept, as a basic tool 30 years ago in the Old Man River case by the Supreme Court. Now we're hearing about climate cops and we're hearing about fertilizer, but the basic idea with the Alberta Sovereignty Act is she wants to be able to say that
00:07:06
Speaker
when she decides and her MLA and her MLAs, right, she makes a big point of this idea that these would be free votes and we can talk about how sincere or even like realistic that suggestion is, but that there would be votes and that they would decide when federal laws intrude on the province's constitutional rights. And if they decide that, they would pass a motion that would
00:07:33
Speaker
in at the very least, in one case, this refuse to sort of participate in enforcement, right, this idea that they would refuse enforcement, although there's actually very little that the province from in terms of federal laws and regimes, there's not actually that much the province helps with. But then you get to the more sort of serious suggestion is that they would somehow interfere or block or nullify, essentially, the operation of those federal laws within Alberta.
00:08:03
Speaker
Right. So essentially the legislature would take it upon itself to decide what laws, what federal laws are constitutional or not. And I should say that not just laws, but she's also referred to federal court decisions. And of course, I think the thing that you need to understand there is that I think when we're talking about federal courts, we're not just referring to the federal court and the federal court of appeal, but all of our superior courts like in Alberta, the court of King's bench,
00:08:30
Speaker
And then now the Court of Appeal, these are federally appointed judges. So she seems to be suggesting that somehow they would be able to decide which of their decisions they want to follow or not. And they would pass a motion basically, and that would be the new lay of the land in the province of Alberta.
00:08:50
Speaker
So if I could try and summarize that, it's like, uh, the sovereignty act would allow Danielle Smith and her caucus to essentially, uh, vote down federal laws and enforcement of federal laws that they don't like. Yep. That's exactly right.
00:09:09
Speaker
And so, I mean, that's relatively, again, we're talking about relatively esoteric legal arguments. And it's interesting to me that this has become the defining issue of this UCP leadership. And if you'll allow me a minute to just offer up a potential explanation for why, I don't think most people give a shit about
00:09:34
Speaker
esoteric legal philosophical arguments about the division of power section 91 or section 92 of the constitution. The reason why I think this has become the defining issue of the UCB leadership race.
00:09:46
Speaker
is because it allows Danielle Smith to hit all of the right-wing memes and talking points and conspiracy theories, and it allows her to address those issues to potential supporters in this leadership race and say, oh yeah, we'll just get rid of it. Oh, this is your issue? Okay, well, we're just gonna get rid of it. And so it's a very clever way to kind of take a wonky, legalistic,
00:10:16
Speaker
You know constitutional law argument and just say actually with with the power of my magical law will be able to fix all of the things that you want fixed and and we see this when Daniel Smith again rolled out her clarifications earlier this week and the clarifications are almost entirely Right-wing meme talking points or conspiracy theories, right?
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think what do you think of what do you think of that take that this is why that that hypothesis is why the issue has be or why the Alberta sovereignty act has become the defining issue of the the UCP leadership race. So I actually, I don't know if
00:10:58
Speaker
You know, so one of the things that's going on here that we haven't had a chance to talk about, which is the main reason why I get so frustrated and why I'm so concerned about this proposal, is actually not about the sort of the niceties of Section 91 versus 92. And then what you exactly as I referred to as a division of powers. But there's this other thing that's happening here, which is that Danielle Smith is saying that she's above the law.
00:11:23
Speaker
And I don't know literally what she has proposed to essentially take on the role of our judges in deciding what is constitutional or not. And if you stop and think about that for a second again, just judges are appointed. And so, of course, it's not a perfect process. But generally speaking, they have tenure for life subject to some terrible misconduct.
00:11:46
Speaker
They're independent. They make their decisions. They have levels of accountability, right? You go from one judge to, from one court level to another, all the way to Supreme Court. As you make your way up, we have more than one judge, right, sitting in these appeals. Again, these are all tools that help to temper the risks of bias and of prejudgment and all that kind of stuff. And of course, then they're also bound by rules, right? There's a craft there. There are doctrines and precedent that you have to apply.
00:12:15
Speaker
and they're supposed to apply them dispassionately and in an apolitical manner and that's not the manner and that's not to say they always do but that's the that's the game and and that's why we say the courts
00:12:25
Speaker
are the guardians of the rule of law, right? Because we built this system that insulates them from the whims and populous sentiments of the day, right? So to go back to your point, I actually, I kind of feel like part of the big problem why this is like, in a sense, flying under the radar, but increasingly, I think picking up steam. And I don't know that, in a sense, she wants to keep having to defend the sort of the lawfulness and the constitutionality of this. And in fact, I think the fact that she climbed down
00:12:54
Speaker
from her team being very blatant about it being unconstitutional to now her trying to argue that, no, it would be constitutional and coming up with bogus arguments for why it's necessary. I don't think she appreciated just how problematic her proposal was from the separation of powers perspective. This is this idea and why I
00:13:16
Speaker
refer to her as a want to be tyrant, the idea that she wants to take over the judicial power within government. But then also the other big thing is that exactly, I think as citizens, we have become ignorant, unfortunately, about these really important things. You can think of it as a massive civics failure that
00:13:40
Speaker
Everybody, the minute they heard her say she's going to ignore the courts, that everybody didn't say, what? Fuck off. That, to my mind, that's the problem here. We've seen this in history. In democracies, we tend to become complacent.
00:14:03
Speaker
And we sort of take things for granted. And we take for granted the fact that
Tyranny and the Role of Judiciary
00:14:07
Speaker
we have, for instance, this functioning government, how we got there, all the institutions and the institutional arrangements that preserve some semblance of peace and security in our society. So that when someone suggests essentially like lobbing off a third of it, people don't really catch on. And so I think a big part of my
00:14:27
Speaker
sort of advocacy in this space has been to really try to re-sensitize people to sort of the fundamental dangerous thing here that she's proposing to do because what we seem to have forgotten again is that government needs checks and balances. We do not want to give our governments all the power.
00:14:49
Speaker
Because then we have none, right? And so we have these institutions in place. And and in particular, we have an independent judiciary who is supposed to be that check and has been and no politician like going back to, you know, one of the talking points here, we're just doing what Quebec does. Show me I dare anyone I will pay $100 to the person who shows me the French version of the Alberta Sovereignty Act in Quebec. It doesn't exist.
00:15:16
Speaker
Fair enough, so you keep using the word tyrant or want to be tyrant and earlier this week you kind of put out a Twitter thread where you kind of made the case. Walk us through that. What is your definition of a tyrant and why does what Danielle Smith is proposing here, why do you believe it's a step towards tyranny?
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah, so and so it goes back to this, you know, again, just to go back to the sovereignty act, right? So the fundamental premise of the whole thing is and is that the legislature by vote will decide what is constitutional or not, right? So that clearly is the what we refer to as like a judicial role. So then what am I referring to there? Well, so
00:15:57
Speaker
you know like hundreds of years ago and this gets all like very romantic and I don't mean to romanticize for instance like the founding of the US and like I know all those dudes had big problems but they did spend some time and they did leave sort of like an intellectual trail of thinking about tyranny. So what is tyranny? Tyranny is essentially for me and I think for them it was this idea of unaccountable power.
00:16:22
Speaker
It was the idea of absolute power without any kind of external constraints and checks. So like kings, right? Like in a sense, in the old days, in the old times, when kings weren't bound by anything, you lived under, you know, to live under a king or queen was to live under tyranny. Because, you know, whatever you however you wanted to exercise any control of them, you couldn't because they control the courts, they control the law, they control, you know, the government, the machinery of the state. And so
00:16:49
Speaker
when these founding fathers, James Madison, Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, you should play some cool music right now. When they got together, they said, how do we prevent that from happening? Because even though they're already in the throes of democracy and democratic forms of government, they realized that if you don't build the system the right way, then it's our nature, we're flawed and
00:17:15
Speaker
You know, like in hard times, the sort of the popular charismatic politician can sort of like swoop in and claim to be able to fix everything. And then all of a sudden all our gains are lost and we're back to living under that sort of like monolithic, concentrated power. And so they're like, we need to separate government into branches, into distinct branches. And those branches have to keep each other in check.
00:17:39
Speaker
And so there's the legislative branch, which is where Ms. Smith wants to go. And that's fine. And we hear a lot about the legislative branch. There's the executive branch. And a lot of this is borrowed from the US example, where it's very strict. So in the US, you have the Congress, and then you have the president as the executive branch, and he appoints
00:18:00
Speaker
various secretaries, but they aren't in government, right? They're not in the legislature, sorry. They're not directly accountable. In Canada, we have some overlap there between the executive branch, which implements laws and policy, and the legislative branch, which passes them. But then we also have the judicial branch. So these are the three sort of powers or branches. And the goal there is that they keep
00:18:24
Speaker
each other in check and in particular the judicial branch and this is where maybe like my training as a lawyer and as a law professor like why I sort of zero in on this side of things like they are there to interpret laws to resolve disputes and that's why we can say that we are you know we live in a country where of where it's the rule of law rather than the rule of men or women right or a group
00:18:54
Speaker
because we're all bound. And that's another really important thing here. In Canada and in other functioning democracies, everybody is bound by the constitution. And so when Daniel Smith's co-chair, Rob Anderson says, like, we'll just ignore the courts, he's basically rejecting democratic, like democratic governance. We become a failed state when someone says, that branch no longer matters.
00:19:22
Speaker
Well, it's funny, it's almost a Leninist style approach to revolution of just kind of provoking a crisis and then seeing what happens, reacting to the crisis, using the crisis to your advantage. I don't imagine Rob Anderson has read much Lenin, but it's funny how these things come in cycles. I think you've kind of made your case. I could see it.
00:19:49
Speaker
I think there are some, not that I'm going to be pushed back or I'm going to be Mr. Devil's advocate here, but I do have some concerns, not concerns, just some like pushback. I'll call it. Yeah, let's do it. Like this is fundamentally a political race. And like, again, I'll come back to the examples that she used on her website for like, this is when we would use the Alberta sovereignty act. She would use it for mandatory vaccinations. Again, not a real thing.
00:20:19
Speaker
settled law from like 100 years ago. Go talk to Dr. Ubaco of Bogo. He's like, did his PhD on it. The jailing and freezing accounts of Convoistas, sure. I don't know what the provincial government would be able to do on that. But again, that's just like a right wing meme talking point. Like fertilizer use, again, another like right wing meme talking point. Mandatory cuts to electricity or oil and gas production, like from the federal government.
00:20:43
Speaker
Again, not realistically on the table, more of a right-wing meme talking point. The federal government taking away your guns, very much a right-wing talking point. The federal government censoring you or independent media based in Alberta, which is like
00:21:00
Speaker
Uh, I think that's, that's targeted a very specific set of like Western standard and rebel media fans. That's very funny to me that that came up as an example. And then the big doozy to me, not the big doozy, but like the one that's most out there is, uh, they would invoke, uh, Daniel Smith would invoke the ASA if there was some type of mandatory federal identification program, which really is just kind of code for like Mark of the beast. And I don't know how.
00:21:27
Speaker
much time you've spent going through millenarian talking points, but I grew up in a pretty hardcore Christian evangelical background and like the Mark of the Beast, like this is Mark of the Beast stuff, like real right wing Christophascist stuff. So it's like, this is all theater.
00:21:50
Speaker
Fundamentally, when Daniel Smith is talking about the Alberta Sovereignty Act, what she is talking about is this is the mechanism through which I will make all of you, my supporters, happy in the context of a leadership race of a right-wing political party. This is why I don't envy you because your brain is exploding.
00:22:09
Speaker
Like you were like, this isn't how anything works. You're wrong. You're, this is, this is bad. This is stupid. This is tyranny. And again, you are correct. But refuting these types of arguments with facts and logic doesn't work. It's not effective because political arguments to be, to be effective don't necessarily have to be coherent. Right. And so, I mean, look for sure, you know, and, and I,
00:22:38
Speaker
I know, and I think I try and I fail repeatedly to try to frame this in a way that someone who might have a very different, you know, and I consider myself nonpartisan. And I know some people can laugh at that, but whatever. I try very hard. But, you know, and I try to think like, how can I say this and articulate this and write this in a way that will possibly be understood or at least like heard
00:23:04
Speaker
by the other side, right, so that they can understand that I'm, that I'm actually what I'm talking about is about safeguarding, you know, like, it's so ironic, of course, right, that these folks cry freedom all the time. But the basic thing that secures your freedom is something like an independent judiciary. And that when a politician decides that, no, actually, I will make those decisions, I'm prepared to ignore the courts in these instances,
00:23:32
Speaker
So I think it's very fair and reasonable to suggest that there may be other instances when that same person is prepared to ignore the courts. And that by supporting that person, you have kissed away one of those hard fought freedoms. We talk about cliches around people giving their lives for this and that, but this is really that stuff. And I take your point that some of this is political theater, but of course the other side to it is that
00:24:00
Speaker
it may be for her. And you know, this is always that question we have is like, does Daniel Smith not get it? Or is she deceiving everyone? Or is it a bit of both? Most people I think land on both. But like, there are there are going to be people, there are groups within her group, you know, like supporters who take this all very seriously. And they will be pissed when it doesn't work out the way they want it to work out. Right. And so in a sense, you know, like,
00:24:28
Speaker
You know, and this goes back to Jason Kenney, right? Like Jason Kenney decided to ride the tiger. He, his whole campaign back in 2017 or 2018 was built around getting people pissed off about environmental groups, pissed off about Ottawa, right? He, he inflamed, he sort of like fanned the flames of, of this anti Ottawa sort of sentiment and, and for a while was able to ride it. And, and, and so then, but, but ultimately couldn't deliver.
00:24:58
Speaker
You know, and we can talk about why I think one of the main reasons actually is that, you know, when we're seeing this in his commentary on the sovereignty act right now, like as far as he was prepared to go, he wasn't prepared to take that next step. You know, he's like an authoritarian. He wants obedience and he wants unanimity, you know, like if you think of.
00:25:19
Speaker
the anti Alberta inquiry essentially as essentially trying to punish people for having different views than him. And the energy war room as essentially going out and hunting down, trying to hunt down, hapless in their effort, but trying to essentially punish people for having, again, for disagreeing with his conception of the good. But he wasn't prepared to break the shackles of the system, you know, which you can think of like a rule of law sort of state.
00:25:45
Speaker
And ultimately, that's probably why he failed, right? Because that system is designed to preserve democracy, and democracy and authoritarianism, they just don't jive
Political Risks and Democratic Concerns
00:25:54
Speaker
very well. So of course, he was going to fail. So then I think Danielle Smith, though, looks at something like that and says, all right, well, then let's just burn it down. Let's just blow it all up. Let's just blow it all up. And that's when you devolve into this next level where, and again, and I do think,
00:26:14
Speaker
partly not understanding maybe initially how radical what it was that she was proposing and how damaging, but now engaging in willful deception. So for instance, when she says to her followers on Tuesday, well, we need to do this because
00:26:25
Speaker
Ottawa is lawless and acts unconstitutionally, and we wait for years while this makes its way through the courts. Well, no, that's total bullshit, because you can walk into a court and you can challenge a law or an action, some kind of policy decision, and at the same time say, and by the way, we know that it's exceptional, but we'd like you to stay or essentially an injunction against that federal law that we disagree with or that federal decision that we disagree with. And yes, there's a test.
00:26:53
Speaker
But but that's the point, right? So you have to go into a court and you have to convince, again, an independent judge that that you meet the tests and that you meet the principles that are laid out in this context. So I think like that was just clear deception on her part to suggest that the sovereignty act is required to provide that kind of relief when, in fact, that relief already exists. The only difference was.
00:27:14
Speaker
that in our reality and under the rule of law, those decisions are made by courts. She doesn't want that. She wants to make those decisions, right? And people will get frustrated because it will break down. And this is something a point that Jared Wesley made. He made the point that
00:27:33
Speaker
Look, our institutions, he thinks our institutions at Alberta are strong enough to withstand this. And I hope he's right. And I think he probably is. But that's really going to make for a lot of frustration if we start going down this road.
00:27:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the, you know, the prequel to all of this which was Jason Kenny and and Jason Kenny's, you know, campaign in 2017 2018 2019 where he, you know, he wanted to
00:28:04
Speaker
essentially put people who said mean things about the oil sands in stocks with his inquiry and he created the war room and these legal fights with the federal government. It's an overused term these days, but was doing this right-wing rage farming with respect to Ottawa and the federal government. While Jason Kenney does not want Danielle Smith to win,
00:28:33
Speaker
I think Daniel Smith is very clearly Jason Kenny's natural successor and that this is, again, you're totally right, just building on his body of work with just simply another kind of more radical, more extreme wrinkle, which is just like, oh yeah, well, we're just going to ignore the law if we don't like it.
00:28:54
Speaker
And it is, I'm sympathetic to your argument, but I think where my frustration lies is with like the reaction of our media and our pundits and our politicians to what is, I think there is some threat of tyranny here. And again, it comes back to like, feelings don't care about your facts.
00:29:23
Speaker
And that argument has been like, that's proved like, especially when it comes to political messaging, like has been proven by like literature and science, you know, studies and.
00:29:35
Speaker
I put effective political messages into kind of two buckets, right? I will say like effective political messaging bucket. Number one are political messages that are all about improving the material conditions, improving the lives of the people who are hearing it. Very simple. Like I will ensure like when Dan, when Rachel, not only talks about how she'll improve healthcare and fix all the damage that's been done by the UCP, that's very much a like bucket. Number one.
00:30:02
Speaker
kind of political message. And bucket number two are political messages that make you feel good. And a fight with Ottawa sounds like great. Daniel Smith is just continually hitting the big red Dr. Feel Good button
00:30:19
Speaker
over and over and over again in her campaign and the UCP base and the UCP members that she has signed up and this is what they want. It's not like Daniel Smith is out there promising to make the lives of her supporters better. I struggle to find any policy in her campaign platform that's like, actually, oh yeah, this would make a material difference and improve people's lives. No, it's all about picking a fight, making people feel good.
00:30:48
Speaker
you know, you've got that group of people that are like, okay, this makes me feel good. And then the UC, I think the other thing that is kind of left unsaid about the UCP is that a lot of them are just kind of craven power seekers. And that now that Daniel Smith has the momentum, now that Daniel Smith is seen as the kind of leader, the next leader of the UCP and the premier in waiting, there are just a people attaching themselves to her left, right and center because they want to be next to power. And this is kind of like how conservative politics works. There's just a whole
00:31:14
Speaker
barnacle class of consultants and government relations people and political hacks and operatives and backroom people who are just like, okay, well, I will adapt whatever it takes to kind of be next to power, right? And so that's, um, and I don't have a good answer for what, like what an effective refutation is. Uh, but I know that, like, I grateful for the work that you do and you, you are providing the intellectual scaffolding for
00:31:45
Speaker
a response to this. But we also have to craft emotionally effective arguments as well. And one that's been floating around out there that I want to just bring up that I don't think is that effective is, I mean, Max Fawcett wrote an article, wrote a column in the National Observer. And it's not just him. There's lots of people that floated this idea.
00:32:06
Speaker
that making the case that Quebec's kind of long flirtation with separatism nearly destroyed its economy. Do you think that that is an effective argument? Yeah, so I mean, I think it kind of depends on who you're targeting, right? And I guess so this is like, so yeah, I mean, I would agree with you that for like the very committed supporters, Danielle Smith, very committed supporters, you know, none of that really matters.
00:32:35
Speaker
Um, but I think when I think about, you know, max making that argument, or if you look at all of like the majority of the other UCP leadership contest, even Rachel, not Lee, like a lot, like it's not just max faucet. It's a lot of like establishment. And so then what I, you know, I think that they're aiming though, like they're speaking to the mushy middle to the extent that it exists. Right. And, and, and I, and I, you know, I think, you know, frankly, that's probably who I'm trying to speak to as well. Right. So, you know, like.
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah, I would welcome the opportunity to speak again with those individuals again, because I think that there's really something fundamental, you know, and maybe you just think like, if we could sit down for a beer, maybe we could sort of like, reach some kind of understanding that, you know, as bad as things are, like, do you want, do you at least understand, are you prepared to really trade away these basic safeguards for your own freedom?
00:33:28
Speaker
Uh, and for the functioning of democracy, like to this end, let's have that conversation. But anyways, but so then, but then I think there's the, again, there's, yeah, there's the, the middle voters,
Communicating Economic Risks
00:33:36
Speaker
right? The people who aren't participating in the UCP race, for instance, I think, you know, so I think probably a lot of this commentary is aimed at the provincial election. If we have it, uh, next year, right? Um, certainly I think, certainly I think miss not least speaking to those people. And then I think certainly, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, Travis Taves, um, Rebecca Schultz, like these folks, you know, it's interesting, like.
00:33:57
Speaker
you know and go back to the point like we focused on one aspect of tyranny which is like the idea that you know essentially she would put herself above the law but she's also sort of like made comments that make it pretty clear that she has no problem telling the police for instance who to charge and not charge right she has she's basically been like yeah i would stay the charges against um all the pastors who were you know arrested and charged with with covid violations you know and like there are like
00:34:24
Speaker
There is, again, there is some overlap in our Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. Yes, the government is made up of MLAs who are responsible in that sense, but there are some clear no-go zones, and you don't want politicians deciding who the police charge and don't charge, right? Because essentially that is a police state, right? So anyway, and so that to me, that's what keeps me up at night.
00:34:50
Speaker
Travis Taves is like, but think of the investment model. Think of capital. How will capital react? Exactly right. I'm kind of at that point where I think we all have our own wheelhouse, and if they want to bang on that drum,
00:35:10
Speaker
Um, fill your boots. And then I do think that there is probably a segment of like a soft, even like soft segment of support, uh, for miss Smith. And then of course, yeah, just like the people on the sidelines who are watching all this happening, trying to tune it out, frankly, but in six months, seven months may be called on to have to weigh in on it. And I think to them, I think that economic argument does make a lot of sense. Um, and again, how big a group is that? I don't know. I don't know how big it is for sure.
00:35:40
Speaker
I think the broad economic argument we can talk about, but the very specific example of Quebec I don't think is a very powerful example. I mean, it is the only example we have of like separatism affecting kind of capital, but Quebec is a fully functional
00:35:58
Speaker
province with a functioning economy where people are able to go to work and have kids and live their lives. Because a bunch of Anglo bankers and capitalists pulled up shop in the 70s, 80s, and 90s because of those two referendums, I'm sure that that had an effect on the economy. But I don't think that's a persuasive argument for, again, people who are even halfway interested in Daniel Smith's, what Daniel Smith is selling. I think it's a very persuasive argument
00:36:27
Speaker
for like Max Fawcett and the like, and people who read his column. But I worry about that not reaching out of its bubble, you know? Sure. And I mean, so I think an interesting thing is that, of course, because so, you know, on a more sort of like maybe basic level or level of first impressions, I think actually maybe the real message initially was like, hey, folks, there's no free lunch. Like, and everything is about trade offs because I think, you know, when exactly like when
00:36:57
Speaker
When the way to hear Miss Smith pitch it, like this is like all benefit, no cost. And so maybe I like as a, as a first instance, the intention here might've been to sort of say, Hey, like don't think you want to be like them. Well, let's, let's be clear about what that was. And, you know, and maybe that, you know, getting to the details of how much was lost and all that kind of stuff, you almost, you know, it can become sort of its own rabbit hole, but I think.
00:37:21
Speaker
you know, if we can at least, you know, to the extent that there are people who are sort of object to this idea, and again, and we're talking about two separate things now, right? One is the separatist sort of like vein, and then the other one is just like the tyrannical vein that I'm sort of a bit more on, but even on the separatist vein to sort of say, hey, like, there are trade offs.
Economic Consequences of Separatism
00:37:39
Speaker
Don't think for a second that this is all just payoff. You will pay something. You will lose something. Are you sure you want to move it?
00:37:50
Speaker
Capital has the ability to inflict real punishment on any economy that it so chooses at any time. We have seen this over and over again when places get out of line and they say the wrong things or they do the wrong things and capital is threatened.
00:38:07
Speaker
It sucks. Like I do not enjoy that. I live in a society where a capital flight or capital strike has the ability to make so many people destitute and affect the material conditions of so many people. But that is, you know, the system in which we live, but, uh, it's the material conditions. I don't want to fight with you, but I will say also that remember it goes the other way too. Sometimes like we have seen in the U S and Southern States that have passed
00:38:35
Speaker
really regressive LGBTQ laws, really regressive. We're seeing all kinds of clawbacks on reproductive rights. In some instances, we see that same capital working the other way. We can talk about the undemocratic nature of that, but it does seem to go sometimes both ways.
00:38:52
Speaker
Well, I don't think, yeah, I mean, capital is concerned with one thing, right? And it's not necessarily rights or tyranny or, you know, you or I and our friends and family having a comfortable life. It's concerned with, you know, accumulating more capital. So I think depending on the kindness of capital and capitalists to punish the people we don't like, I think is a fool's end. I'd rather build power, you know, for actual working class people.
00:39:20
Speaker
I don't have a good answer. Like I don't, I'm not sitting here with a book of strategy saying this is how we combat Danielle Smith's, uh, Alberta sovereignty act. And this is how we deprogram all these people who think it's a good idea. Like, unfortunately I don't have that. And I, and I, and I thank you for doing the work, you know, the intellectual scaffolding work. Um, and I should say though, you know, and so like, it's funny that you say that. So like, literally, I think, you know, I've referred to this, uh, you know, I did a pod with Nate Pike a while ago and then on my, some of my,
00:39:48
Speaker
Sometimes on Twitter, I go to Tim Snyder's book on tyranny. And so I should say that, I mean, it's interesting because that is like, it's literally like a handbook, right? So to the extent that your listeners are listening and are maybe interested, you know, he wrote it actually on the eve of Trump's election in
Recognizing and Countering Tyranny
00:40:05
Speaker
the States, right? So Tim Snyder is, I think, a historian out of Yale. And like, it is like a pocketbook. It's essentially 20 lessons.
00:40:12
Speaker
on tyranny, adopted to modern times, right. And, and so I have been actually, you know, not, you know, I'll say very clearly, like, you know, again, going back to the comment I made at the beginning, I have a science background, and law. And so I'm supposed to be worrying about things like impact assessment, or climate change, or whatever. This is this was stuff that I should say not entirely new to me, I kind of, I began
00:40:39
Speaker
teaching administrative law about six, seven years ago. And I actually spent a year in the States for my grad school. And they really kind of like, they really jam this stuff about the separation of powers and the role of the judicial branch, they jam it into your head pretty good. So it's not entirely new to me. But anyways, but I certainly have looked there. And I mean,
00:41:02
Speaker
when you look at Tim Snyder's book and what he says to do, you know, like without being like self laudatory or whatever, but these are, this is exactly the thing that he would say that you need to do. You need to, you need to speak out about it. You need to point it out. You need to, you need to insist on certain basic norms. You need to protect institutions, you know, and again, it's kind of weird because I'm not, you know,
00:41:27
Speaker
The Alberta Court of Appeal has written two reference opinions in the context of the last two years, which I strongly disagreed with. And I felt, not just doctrinally, but I felt like there were clear problems in terms of what I would refer to as really not judicial reasoning, really engaging in some of this rhetoric, the political rhetoric. But I'll defend the Alberta Court of Appeal as an institution.
00:41:53
Speaker
you know, and I'll defend our courts as an institution. And I'll say, you know, we need to make sure that we appoint judges who are impartial, who at least strive to be impartial. And, you know, and I can engage in that discussion, but I don't want to burn it down. And so that, and so then all of us really, unfortunately, that's sort of where we need to, we need to come back to a place, I think, you know, and maybe this is, again, and maybe it doesn't work, but there's no, as you say, like there's no secret
00:42:22
Speaker
solution here. There's no magic formula. They're just having these conversations. I welcome anyone with that thread where I called Ms. Smith a want to be tyrant. I mean, I sort of said she exhibits all the tendencies of a tyrant, changed my mind. And the one thing I haven't seen is no one's taken a run at that. And so like, please do. And if you're hearing this and you happen to be a Smith supporter,
00:42:48
Speaker
You know, as whether I like it or not, my emails out there, you can find it, send me an email and explain to me why you think this is okay. And maybe we can hash it out because, because this is, this does, this is fundamentally outside the realm of normal, of, of, and not just normal, but like proper democratic discourse. This takes us into a place that we haven't been before. And, and I don't want it. Like, again, it's like, am I panicking? No, I'm not panicking. Do I think that these bad things will come to pass? I, I, you know, probably on like looking at the odds, I'd probably say not.
00:43:18
Speaker
But if they did, you know, and then also things like we said, you know, things like coots, like the coots, murder charges, you know, against those groups there. Attempted murder. January 6th, right? Attempted murder. January 6th in Washington, you know, like there, it's very, you know, news articles talking about the fact that we are really at a pitch point in terms of political violence in this country.
00:43:41
Speaker
We need to, you know, again, it sounds very Pollyanna, but man, we just, we need to recommit to basic, certain basic institutions and institutional norms and to try to resolve our differences within those structures because they're not, they didn't just, we didn't just come up with them yesterday or the day before. We, you know, they are, for now anyways, the hallmarks of basic democratic governance and we need to commit to them.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:44:06
Speaker
Well, Martin, thank you so much for taking the time to have this chat with me. I think it has been a useful conversation and I appreciate you lending your brain to us and our audience. What's the best way for people to kind of follow along with your work and your thoughts both on this matter as well as the stuff you'd rather be writing about the Bill C-69, Supreme Court, environmental law, all that stuff?
00:44:32
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, so like you said, I mean, you can find me on Twitter. I probably spend more time there than I should. You got the, I'm sure you'll find the handle there somewhere. We'll put it in the show notes. Yes, of course. There you go. And, uh, and you know, and then, um, you know, the law school is with the law, you know, we have all our stuff up there. If anybody wants to reach me by email, it's, uh, it's on the law school. There you go. And like I said, yeah, like I, I welcome, you know, I, I welcome those discussions and we have to have them.
00:45:02
Speaker
But thank you, Duncan, for having me on. I think when you first reached out, I probably said something like, I'm a little bit burnt out on talking about this, but I think it is really important. And if I can help.
00:45:14
Speaker
with this effort to just at least so that people understand fully what's on the table here and how radically weird it is and bad. We didn't even have time to get into the various immune system responses that we are going to see. If she does win the leadership, least of which is an election, which is going to happen anytime between now and who knows, 2024 I suppose is the latest to come over.
00:45:42
Speaker
I'll get my three-peat and I'll come join you here in the new year. And we talk about how the current, well, depending on whatever her position is at that point, whether or not we're having an election or maybe we'll get together and say, hi, it turned out to be nothing. And I'll say, you know what, that's fine. I'm okay with that. Yeah. And just Travis Taves will be the premier for the next 15 years. Maybe, maybe. That's not.
00:46:06
Speaker
Let's not do that. All right. Well, thank you so much, Martin. Folks, if you have any notes, thoughts, comments, things you think I made every second, I am very easy to get ahold of as well. My email is duncank at progresselberta.ca. I am also on Twitter at Duncan Kinney. Thank you to Jim Story for editing this pod. Thank you to Cosmic Family Communists for our theme. Thank you for listening and goodbye.