This October, Albertans will make a choice about their future. Either they\u2019ll vote to stay a part of Canada or they\u2019ll vote to leave. <\/p>\n
Well, actually, they won\u2019t vote to \u201cleave.\u201d They\u2019ll vote to have another referendum on whether Alberta should start the process of trying to leave. But the legal minutiae don\u2019t really matter. <\/p>\n
In many ways, the entire referendum doesn\u2019t really matter. Whatever the outcome, we are all going to keep hearing about Alberta separatism for many, many years to come. <\/p>\n
Never has a delusion been this elevated in the province, says Nate Pike. The host of the popular podcast The Breakdown AB<\/a> says this \u201cdestructive version of bread and circuses\u201d has bubbled up from online conspiracy forums and racist immigration fears into a movement whose concerns \u2014 no matter how outlandish \u2014 are now driving public policy.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd to elevate them, for the premier of the province to elevate them, to allow those things to further propagate, is not only demonstrably harmful but to me it is, it\u2019s just patently irresponsible,\u201d says Pike.<\/p>\n On this episode of The Tyee Podcast, Pike tests our censors as he explains where the separatist movement came from, how much of it is being driven by foreign interference and how the vast majority of Albertans who are tired of this conversation need to fight back.<\/p>\n \u201cThis asymmetrical warfare that they are playing on us needs to be responded to, and it can’t be responded to with apathy.\u201d<\/p>\n Note: Episode transcripts may contain errors. Always check the corresponding audio before quoting any part of the transcript.<\/p>\n Harrison Mooney Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike [music]<\/p>\n Harrison Mooney [music]<\/p>\n Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney Nate Pike Harrison Mooney
I am really sick of hearing about separatism. I mean, the referendum on whether Alberta should start to begin the process of maybe looking into leaving Canada is still weeks away. That means several more weeks of grievance politics, of foreign interference claims, of electoral shenanigans. I can\u2019t do it, but believe me, nobody \u2014 absolutely nobody \u2014 is more tired of this topic than Albertans. This is the Tyee Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Harrison Mooney. Every episode, we dive deeper into the stories shaping the West Coast, because Canada needs more B.C. and Alberta, too. For the vast majority of the population, all of this separation talk is an embarrassing distraction from the very real issues impacting Alberta. Unfortunately, the discourse is being influenced by a small but mighty collection of angry online activists, racist conspiracy theorists, and good old-fashioned grifters. Nate Pike says we need to stop enabling this madness. The host of Alberta\u2019s popular podcast, The Breakdown, joins The Tyee this week to explain why it\u2019s time to turn off the fire hose of bullshit. Don\u2019t go anywhere.<\/p>\n
Nate, thanks so much for joining me. I\u2019m excited to talk to you because I don\u2019t actually know what\u2019s going on in Alberta. Like we write a lot of stuff at The Tyee, and I read most of it, but I don\u2019t understand what\u2019s going on in Alberta. Can you explain what is happening with this referendum?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s probably multiple interpretations of it. I\u2019ll give you my personal interpretation of it, and then I\u2019ll try to flesh it out with a couple of other likely interpretations. But the reality is, is that the current premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, when she ran for leadership a few years back, she very much had to engage with a segment of the population that defines itself largely on grievance politics, so we\u2019re talking about the folks who all went down to Coutts. We\u2019re talking about the folks who were doing the slow rolls through the province during the pandemic. We\u2019re talking about that whole grievance, freedom, I would say conspiracy-loving group. That\u2019s who she brought to the table in order to secure her leadership. One of them very much was the separatist question. Separatism in Alberta is not new. Alberta has at one point in history, I think it was 20, 30 years ago, elected a separatist MLA in a by-election. So this is not a new conversation. There has always been this group that has had this as part of their \u2014 I would honestly call it part of their culture \u2014 and it has never had a leader or a political figure that was willing to elevate it to the levels that Daniel Smith was willing to elevate it to. She literally rewrote the law multiple times in order to make the referendum happen for these folks because these are the ones who not only brought her to the dance but by and large historically they\u2019ve been in control of the party that she\u2019s a member of, the United Conservative Party. So there\u2019s an enabling, a great enabling that has brought us to this point.<\/p>\n
OK, so sometimes when people talk about these political figures who indulge these particular factions, there\u2019s a, you know, this kind of divide that we do where we say, you know, this person is indulging this faction. They\u2019re not part of this faction. You know they\u2019re kind of they need these votes, so they throw some red meat to this group, but they\u2019re actually like a calculated politician who doesn\u2019t necessarily believe this. I know that you can\u2019t necessarily speak for Danielle Smith, but sometimes I get the sense that maybe she really believes this.<\/p>\n
I think that there\u2019s one of the problems that Alberta faces with this current premier, in my opinion, is she will believe whatever the people that she\u2019s in the room with will believe. Like there\u2019s a couple of people who have described her as an ideological magpie that just picks up the shiny bits, and that\u2019s what she lines her nest with. And I think that there\u2019s a lot of accuracy in that. I think one of the other things that happens with her is she will not invalidate crazy things. I cannot think of an example where I have seen Danielle Smith be confronted with something that was, and I hope I can use this language, batshit crazy, and her response has been to say, \u201cWell, that\u2019s a little far for me. Like I understand that you\u2019ve probably spent some time with the Facebook and you\u2019ve read posts and they have made you very upset, but you should not believe that because it is simply not true.\u201d She will allow these things to propagate, and I think that\u2019s another big part of the core of the problem around the referendum.<\/p>\n
I checked with my censors, and we are allowed to say \u201cbatshit crazy.\u201d So thanks for that.<\/p>\n
Are there any other restrictions?<\/p>\n
No, no restrictions at all. This podcast is completely free of censorship. You can say all the worst words, but don\u2019t say them all in a row because that, you know, it\u2019s just, it\u2019s crass. OK, so the separatist movement, I assume, is based on something. Can you talk about what the grievances are here? What are these folks mad about? Why do they want to leave us?<\/p>\n
Well, this is part of the problem. The great propaganda recipe is very much at play here, and by that, what I mean is there are slices of perceived grievances that, taken in isolation, could be perceived by some to be legitimate. These are grievances that are not being held in good faith. They\u2019re not being held by people who have, \u201cI would like to see these issues addressed in a meaningful way.\u201d They\u2019re being held by people who are using them as pretences to prop up their argument on separatism.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to assume that one of the issues, just, I\u2019m just spitballing here, is immigrants. It sounds very American to me this whole referendum, and I\u2019m pretty sure we\u2019re getting into the states\u2019 rights issue here, and that it\u2019s going to turn out to actually have a, like, a pretty obvious racial component. Is that fair to say?<\/p>\n
One hundred per cent. And I would make the argument that, you know, depending on which of the 10 referendum questions we\u2019re talking about, I think four or five of them are targeted specifically towards questions of immigration, and they are largely built on data that is older, and they\u2019re built on false pretences as well. The questions themselves have been panned by academics and experts across the board because they are horribly misleading.<\/p>\n
What do the experts know, though? Really.<\/p>\n
Well, and that brings us back to the problem \u2014 because it is the part of this whole cycle \u2014 is the demonization of expertise. We\u2019ve seen it with Daniel Smith and her attacks on the judiciary. So there\u2019s, the MAGA parallel that you\u2019re drawing is not misplaced. There very much is that component at play. I recently, I\u2019ve been having little pokes with a far right separatist content creator in the last little while, and one of the things that he is adamant on is that \u201cThey call us all racist, and it\u2019s not true.\u201d I don\u2019t believe, and I will say this on the record at every given opportunity, I don\u2019t believe that every separatist is a racist. I do, however, think that if you are one person in a room of 20, and the other 19 are openly racist, there\u2019s some internal and external questions that you have to ask, and those questions aren\u2019t being asked. And a lot of the tropes, a lot of the racism that we\u2019ve seen towards not only immigrants but First Nations has been just naked. The anonymity of the internet has flowed over into real life in really horrifying and disgusting ways.<\/p>\n
One thing I find, too, though, is that often you know these movements will feed the racist component, the racist contingent, but actually behind that are a bunch of really wealthy people who are just trying to not pay taxes and exploit the resources of the region, you know. I\u2019m assuming that\u2019s also going on here.<\/p>\n
I would argue that the reality of this particular movement, and I\u2019m air quoting that to some degree, because I think it is a cyclical iteration of the Freedom Convoy predated by the Yellow Vesters, predated by the, predated by the, predated by the\u2026 My interpretation of the leadership structure thus far is that there is a certain craven approach of \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of people who are really, really angry. We want to keep them very angry, and we can get money from them. So let\u2019s keep doing that.\u201d And this is where one of my biggest concerns in regards to even entertaining the conversation and the air quotes legitimate grievances that these folks are ostensibly bringing to the table is a lot of them are not, taken in context of confederation, all that legitimate. And secondary to that the illegitimate ones, the WEF, the Brookfield, the 5g wireless, the COVID vaccines, the it\u2019s all a conspiracy to stop Donald Trump, who is the second coming of Christ \u2014 these are all real things. I\u2019m not being hyperbolic \u2014 the amplification of those creates very real harm, and one of the things that I look at when I look at a lot of the people who are deeply invested in this movement is these are people who have bought into the conspiracy theory realm. I mean, COVID broke a lot of people, and there were a lot of people who weaponized a lot of broken people, and there are demonstrated communications and psychological effects that are clearly, clearly at play here. And to elevate them, for the premier of the province to elevate them, to allow those things to further propagate is not only demonstrably harmful, but to me it is, it\u2019s just patently irresponsible.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it seems like you\u2019re, you\u2019re saying that there is also a large contingent among the separatists of suckers. Is that, is that about what you\u2019re saying?<\/p>\n
Yeah, like P.T. Barnum had it right.<\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah. We\u2019re not saying that they\u2019re all suckers. Just like we\u2019re saying that they\u2019re not all racists.<\/p>\n
The problem with suckers, in my opinion, is that if you have a person who\u2019s saying a dumb thing, then you have one person who\u2019s saying a dumb thing. But if that person can source out, let\u2019s say, that there\u2019s one sucker per 100. OK, well, in the good old days pre-internet, you might be able to find three or four of them, and you could start a little commune somewhere in the mountains. But now that we have the, the networking that exists via all the social media platforms and the loneliness that came out of COVID, the suckers are much, much, much easier to find, and that begets perceived legitimacy because now it\u2019s not just one dude with four people meeting out back at the Denny\u2019s. Now all of a sudden they\u2019re renting out hotel conference rooms.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re a movement.<\/p>\n
And that again begets more perceived legitimacy. And that\u2019s again where I would argue the leadership in this province, by and large, although there\u2019s some that are stepping up, like I\u2019m looking at the mayor of Calgary, he is knocking it out of the park right now, on a number of, on a number of different fronts.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s he saying? What\u2019s he doing?<\/p>\n
He\u2019s calling it out. He\u2019s saying, like, \u201cLook, Canada, Alberta is better in Canada.\u201d A lot of the reasons why people are saying that they want to separate are not legitimate. We shouldn\u2019t even be having this conversation. We have some very real issues that we need to address, and polling supports that. If you take a look at the major issues that Albertans have identified repeatedly in multiple polls, so I don\u2019t care so much about the one methodology of the one poll that said the one thing. When you have multiple polls all telling you that Albertans are most concerned about cost of living. They\u2019re most concerned about education. They\u2019re most concerned about health care. To do the most destructive version of bread and circuses that you can possibly come up with is just irresponsible.<\/p>\n
Or maybe it\u2019s ingenious. When we come back, is this separatism symphony being orchestrated by foreign agents looking to destabilize Canada?<\/p>\n
So, in addition to the idea that maybe there\u2019s a lot of influence of the sucker contingent going on here, I think that there\u2019s also a real whiff of foreign interference. This all sounds very American. Daniel Smith says stuff that I swear came right out of the mouth of Donald Trump first. There\u2019s an interesting overlay happening here in terms of what we\u2019re hearing out of the States and what we\u2019re hearing out of Alberta, and honestly, sometimes it feels coordinated. Talk to me about foreign interference. Is there an American agenda at play here, or is Alberta just freewheeling and doing its own thing?<\/p>\n
Yes, to both. And I would say that in a couple of different ways. So first of all, if you accept the premise that Danielle Smith is very easily influenced by the people that she\u2019s with, you know she has gone to Mar-a-Lago. She did make a special detour of her trip, paid for by taxpayers, to meet with, for all of 30 seconds, Donald Trump. She regularly makes sojourns down to the States. Many of her ministers, I mean, a couple of her ministers have initiated the prayer breakfast, the provincial prayer breakfast that they openly said was modelled after the Republican version of that. So there is and has been for many years in Alberta, particularly among some segments of the conservative movement, a \u201cBut we really, really want to be like Americans.\u201d And so I think that there is a cultural influence that that very much is at play that the conservative movement is particularly vulnerable to. I would also say, though, given what we know about well, there\u2019s two ways that I\u2019ll come at this. So the first piece is, the U.S. State Department has taken meetings with separatists. That is on the record. It is confirmed. That is, to me, in and of itself, a form of foreign interference because these people have no standing by which to represent or negotiate for Albertans. But the U.S. State Department was like, sure, come on into a soundproof skiff, and we\u2019ll have a top secret squirrel conversation. That is the U.S. State Department, in some capacity, legitimizing this movement, and I don\u2019t know how that doesn\u2019t count as foreign interference, because to me it absolutely is. It\u2019s a little bit more subversive than overt, but it\u2019s very much real there. That is demonstrable and provable and true and all of those things. So, do with that what you will. But I also think that in in today\u2019s day and age, where you know one of the things that that a lot of people have taken to doing on the Twitter machine \u2014 it will always be Twitter to me \u2014 is now that you can see where people\u2019s accounts are based out of, assuming that they\u2019re not smart enough to use a VPN, there\u2019s a lot of pro-separatist accounts that amplify and initiate separatist rhetoric. Secondary to that, we\u2019ve seen reporting from the CBC that has talked about the fact that because this is a hot topic, there are people literally around the world who have figured out, \u201cOh, I live in…\u201d I don\u2019t know Norway…<\/p>\n
Switzerland. That\u2019s the neutral country you were looking for. Yeah\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI live in Switzerland, but I can make 500 bucks a month by shitposting Alberta separatism stuff in Alberta separatism groups. I\u2019m going to do that because I can buy things with money.\u201d And that is demonstrable and proven to have happened. So all of that to me absolutely counts as foreign interference. I would also be comfortable taking it the next iteration and saying, given the ways that we\u2019ve seen that foreign governments absolutely contribute to the destabilisation of states that are maybe a little bit less on the stable side, it would be naive and Pollyanna-ish on a level that I can\u2019t begin to wrap my head around to go, \u201cWell, Alberta\u2019s thinking about separating, and that would have catastrophic economic impacts. It would also have catastrophic or potentially huge impact on geopolitical relations with the United States. And the United States has said they want to take over Canada, and this could be a foothold, anyways. But you know what? My name\u2019s Vlad, and I\u2019m going to sit this one out.\u201d There are no protections in place, and the government itself, the provincial government, is engaging in misinformation and disinformation by nature of the questions that they\u2019re asking. So, is it an exercise in a fire hose of bullshit, I would argue yes.<\/p>\n
Is it an exercise in a fire hose of bullshit? Yes. OK, I want to ask you about the logistics of the referendum itself. I mean, first question: Let\u2019s say 51 people, 51 per cent of people say Alberta should leave. That doesn\u2019t happen, then, right? That\u2019s not what this referendum is about. Like, it\u2019s like a referendum to have a referendum.<\/p>\n
Yeah, we\u2019re doing things in a much dumber way. The referendum in itself is a referendum to have a referendum on should we start the process of separating. That gets into the, all of the constitutional mechanics of separation that turns into… we don\u2019t have enough time to have that conversation today because it\u2019s so fraught from a legal standpoint the idea of Alberta being able to secede in a year is just laughable.<\/p>\n
Can they separate? Is that even allowed within the constitution?<\/p>\n
That is the source of some debate. So the technical answer is yes. There is a very narrow pathway to start negotiation for separation, but it requires all of the other provinces to be like, yeah, it\u2019s cool. You can go.<\/p>\n
We have to give permission.<\/p>\n
In effect, I\u2019m oversimplifying this way too much, but in effect, yes. And it\u2019s, I mean, and this brings up one of the easy counter arguments for separation. So Alberta is taking this great big victory lap about the new pipeline that we\u2019re going to build, that I hear the folks in B.C. are very, very happy about.<\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah, we\u2019re pretty upset.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing to say if Alberta was to separate that you guys couldn\u2019t say, \u201cYeah, so there\u2019s going to be this oil transit tax, and it\u2019s going to be your entire profit margin less a penny a barrel. Thanks for the money.\u201d Like there\u2019s literally nothing to prevent that from happening were Alberta to leave Confederation, and so there\u2019s all of these unmapped, unintended, not understood consequences of what the legality looks like, and that\u2019s not even getting into the First Nations piece, which to me. Where it starts and stops.<\/p>\n
Can you unpack that a little bit for me?<\/p>\n
Well, it\u2019s really easy. Alberta is, with the exception of the national parks, entirely covered by treaties. The treaties are with the Crown; they are not with the province of Alberta. So, in order for the treaties to cease to exist, the group of largely crazy white folks who are maybe a little bit racist, some of them, have to convince First Nations folks you can trust the white people this time.<\/p>\n
Oh right, OK, yeah, I get it. I get it. It\u2019s not even their land, so they\u2019re going to secede on land that\u2019s not their land. That\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a different situation than B.C. because in B.C. you have all of the unceded territories, but literally everything except for like Banff and Jasper and a couple of the military bases and I think Waterton, I\u2019m probably missing a couple of national parks. Those are the big ones. Everything but that is treaty land, and so in order to dissolve the treaties or to have those treaties, Canada and the Crown no longer have an obligation to defend those treaties, you would have to get the First Nations folks to say, \u201cOK, we\u2019ll make a deal with these white folks. It\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah, these are the nice ones.<\/p>\n
Every time I bring that up to my First Nations friends and acquaintances, they laugh and laugh and then get very serious and go, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
OK, so the referendum then, like I want to talk about the, you know, you right before we started recording, you mentioned that the actual logistics of it, just how this election is going to go, sending out ballots, lineups, and stuff. That\u2019s all already looking pretty messy.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a dumpster fire because this is another example of how the conspiracy theorists who Daniel Smith caters to have managed to influence policy decisions in the dumbest ways possible. So one of the big conspiracies was, \u201cOh the electronic voting machines. Don\u2019t you know they stole the election from Donald Trump?\u201d<\/p>\n
Right.<\/p>\n
\u201cElectronic voting machines are bad. We should not be using electronic voting machines.\u201d We don\u2019t. The closest thing that we come to using historically that we\u2019ve come to using has been vote tabulators or basically Scantron counters. Everybody votes by paper ballot. The paper ballots are kept. That\u2019s how we were able to do multiple recounts in the last provincial election. But the misinformation and disinformation was sufficient, and enough pressure was applied to Danielle Smith that her very rubbery spine bent right over, and she was like, \u201cOK, well, we\u2019re going to ban it all. It has to be hand votes, hand-counted.\u201d All of those eligible voters are going to be voting using paper ballots, and those paper ballots have to be hand counted. But we\u2019re not just doing one question, we\u2019re doing 10, and each of those questions has to be on a separate piece of paper, and so Elections Alberta has come back and said, \u201cHey, so remember that last provincial election? This is going to cost like 20 times more than that, and we need to hire like 60,000 people in order to be able to count the ballots.\u201d Because one of the other fun things that they did when they got rid of the vote tabulators is they said, we have to have results quickly. So all results by law have to be hand counted within 48 hours of the close of the polls, which I hear has nothing but good effects on accuracy.<\/p>\n
Super fast, it\u2019s fine. It\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n
Elections Alberta is desperately trying to hire the people to be able to facilitate this thing, and this is months after Elections Alberta came back, went to the citizens\u2019 referendum committee, and we\u2019re like, \u201cHey, we need laptops. Can we have some laptops, please?\u201d And the committee was like, \u201cWell, you\u2019ve asked for $14 million. We will give you one.\u201d<\/p>\n
One laptop for $14 million.<\/p>\n
No $1 million.<\/p>\n
Oh, I see.<\/p>\n
But the institutions that are supposed to support these sorts of initiatives have been eviscerated. It\u2019s going to be an absolute dumpster fire. So I, yes, I did apply for a special ballot, a mail-in ballot. I definitely encourage anybody who wants to be able to vote and not wait for 48 hours in a lineup to look at doing that. It\u2019s a very easy process, but I dread how this is going to go because it\u2019s so complex, it\u2019s so convoluted that if anything goes wrong, the people who believe that the chemtrails are being put in the skies by the insurance companies because they want to make it flood so that they can raise your insurance premiums \u2014 real thing, not making that up \u2014 those people, if they don\u2019t get the result that they want, which they won\u2019t, because 75 per cent of Albertans do not support this in any meaningful way, they\u2019re going to be like, \u201cWell, this is because of the chemtrails, or they put microchips in the number four pencils, and that\u2019s why everybody thought they were writing in this, but secretly they were writing it.\u201d Like there\u2019s, there\u2019s no end to where this can go.<\/p>\n
Right. Yeah. I\u2019m really detecting a disconnect between the complexity of this issue and the intelligence of the people handling it. That\u2019s concerning for me.<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s deliberate. I don\u2019t know that it is. Like here\u2019s the thing, and this is one of the things that I have in seven years of covering Alberta politics, it is only in the last six months to a year that I\u2019ve kind of adopted the \u2014 I hear a thing, always verify anything before The Breakdown puts anything out publicly, or we make it clear that this is unverified. But my reaction when I hear something now is, \u201cSure, why not?\u201d Because sure we\u2019re going to do a referendum with 10 questions using paper ballots. It all has to be hand-counted and the results have to be done within 48 hours. Five of the questions are wildly racist. The other question, the other four questions, are constitutional questions that we have no ability to have any sort of force and effect with, other than just saying we raised our hands and had a temper tantrum, and one of them has to do with just leaving Canada. Sure, why not? That\u2019s a thing that sounds like it could happen in Alberta in 2026, because it is.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I mean, I guess you really do just have to accept that there\u2019s a lot of a lot of nonsense happening. Like this is really giving like dumb Brexit, and Brexit was already pretty dumb. But I guess that that also concerns me because you know when Brexit was happening, most people thought this is never going to happen. I mean, there\u2019s no way. It\u2019s too complicated. And then lo and behold, so I do think that there\u2019s, you know, there\u2019s stuff to laugh at now, but this could get very unfunny in a hurry.<\/p>\n
Oh, I think it\u2019s already unfunny. To be clear, I use a lot of humour. That\u2019s my coping mechanism.<\/p>\n
Me too.<\/p>\n
But there are some. I have some very real existential concerns about even having this conversation. One of the big things that I think any political leader should be extraordinarily mindful of, and unfortunately, we get Danielle Smith in Alberta, is the ideas that you allow to elevate have real consequences, even if it\u2019s obvious, demonstrable bullshit. There\u2019s a principle called the illusory truth effect, and if, here\u2019s something for all of your listeners to be terrified of. It\u2019s a proven psychological principle. This is not Nate just pulling stuff out of the ether. By all means, please fact-check me.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to tell my listeners now that this is unverified. Carry on, carry on.<\/p>\n
The illusory truth effect has been studied at great length, and there\u2019s been a number of studies that have been done in the last 10, 15 years. Some of them even post-pandemic, and basically the way that it works is, you can say to someone, and I\u2019ll use one of the questions that was actually used in one of the studies, the dress that a Scottish man wears, it\u2019s called a kilt. That is a fact. Have that fact. Know that fact. I\u2019m going to tell you that it\u2019s actually called a sarong.<\/p>\n
Right? That\u2019s \u201cso wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to do that 15 times, and by the time that I\u2019ve done it 15 times, you are already questioning it, if not accepting that that\u2019s what it\u2019s actually called. You can be aware of false information, but because of the way that the brain likes to process familiar information, the more that you make bullshit familiar, the more that the brain accepts it. Even if you knew at one point it was bullshit. So when we elevate conversations about the WEF or chemtrails or the grievances that we have with the rest of Canada, and they are unfounded, there is going to be a significant percentage of the population that goes, \u201cWell. I know they\u2019re full of shit, but there does kind of sound like something to it.\u201d And that is the most terrifying part of all of this for me because that\u2019s a principle that gets weaponized on social media all the time, and it\u2019s a principle that is being allowed to run unchecked by the leaders because nobody wants to… Like Danielle Smith cannot stand up right now and say, \u201cOK, guys, look here\u2019s the deal. I know that I said a bunch of stuff when I wanted to be the leader of the province, but 90 per cent of this stuff is not true. I\u2019m not going to tolerate it. We\u2019re not going to do the referendum. I\u2019m not going to demonize the courts.\u201d She would within hours be facing a leadership review by her own party.<\/p>\n
Is it possible that this referendum goes so badly and the results are so in favour of staying in Canada that this issue goes away, that they drop it?<\/p>\n
No, but I will say this because I think that this is important. One of the things that I very strongly believe is one of the approaches that the separatists have used is they have taken the tack of, \u201cYou know, what I\u2019m not going to be ashamed of being who I am anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
There is, I think, some truth to that. I think that\u2019s why it resonates with some people. I think that, you know, one of the things if we want to put this issue to bed, it is going to require, from Canadians in Alberta, but Canadians across the country, the willingness to stand up and go, \u201cI\u2019m ******* done with this,\u201d and we need to say, \u201cYou know what? No, you want to come over here and you want to talk some separatist bullshit? I\u2019m not going to hear it. You go away. You get nothing to do with me. You get nothing to do with my family. You get nothing to do with my friends. I, no, we\u2019re done.\u201d That\u2019s it, because that\u2019s what they do to everybody else, and so this asymmetrical warfare that they are playing on us needs to be responded to, and it can\u2019t be responded to with apathy. It can\u2019t be responded to with an abundance of manners. It has to be responded to with, \u201cListen, here\u2019s your problem, sir. Your whole argument is predicated on bullshit, and if you can\u2019t see that, that\u2019s fine. I do not have the time, nor the energy, nor the resources to try to deprogram you.\u201d<\/p>\n
You know, one of my biggest frustrations with this movement, with separatism, and honestly, even with this kind of this new kind of right-wing movement, is just the way that it drags us all down into the mud. And you know, now suddenly, you know, I\u2019m like a progressive about a lot of things. I don\u2019t want to be out here saying that Canada is the best country in the world. I don\u2019t want to be out here saying that Canada exports good to the rest of the world when we know that, like, we have in some cases, but we also haven\u2019t in other cases. I don\u2019t want to be doing that. I want to be having substantive conversations about how we can all work together to make this country better, or to somehow find a way to actually just work together with people in other countries, join everyone together, you know, collectively improve society, but instead we wind up having to have this fight about Canada\u2019s virtue and you know whether or not we should actually cut them off from us because they\u2019re bad and we\u2019re good.<\/p>\n
Well, can I say one other thing real quick?<\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.<\/p>\n
I think one of the other takeaways because this is a podcast, I assume, that is going to be listened to by people in B.C. and people in Manitoba and people across Canada.<\/p>\n
One hopes.<\/p>\n
I hope so. The show is called the Breakdown AB, @TheBreakdownAB, by the way.<\/p>\n
Oh, you\u2019re talking about your podcast. I see, I see.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I was, I was, I was plugging mine there because this thing is going to get heard by a lot of people. Do not think for one second, that any province is immune to the type of problems that we\u2019re seeing in Alberta. I watched. I don\u2019t have the full context. I desperately wish that I did, but I watched a video yesterday that was out of the Maritimes that was \u2014 based on what was presented, and again, I do not have the full context, so I\u2019m not going to weigh in on it too much \u2014 but there were some people who were having way too much fun beating the shit out of another human being, ostensibly because they were Muslim. That didn\u2019t happen, I mean, it happens in Alberta, but that video didn\u2019t come from Alberta.<\/p>\n
Nate, this has been a wonderful conversation. Yeah, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Let\u2019s make sure that we plug your podcast one more time.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it\u2019s The Breakdown with Nate Pike. You can find it on YouTube. You can find it on all of the podcast places. All of the social media handles is @thebreakdownAB. And if you are someone who wants to be proud of being Canadian, you should definitely pay attention to our socials over the next little while because we\u2019re gonna have some fun.<\/p>\n
And this podcast is called The Tyee Podcast. Nate Pike was my guest, and as he mentioned, you can find all of his work and videos by searching the Breakdown Alberta. Did you enjoy today\u2019s episode? Let us know by sending an email or voice note to podcast@ thetyee.ca. The Tyee is a non-profit, reader- and listener-funded journalism organisation made possible thanks to the support of our Tyee Builders. That could be you, listener. Head over to support.thetyee.ca to sign up, so we can keep publishing journalism in the public interest. That\u2019s support.thetyee.ca. And if you want to advertise on this podcast, we have a team that wants to hear from you. You can email them at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. Today\u2019s episode was hosted by me, Harrison Mooney. It was produced by Jacob Boon and engineered by Isaac Phan Nay. Our music is by Bryan Binnema. Join us again in two weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This October, Albertans will make a choice about their future. Either they\u2019ll vote to stay a part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26826,9576,711,35572,17,2365,35574,8656,35577,14032,35579,35581,35582,35584,56149,35585,35586,35587,56150,56151],"class_list":["post-177519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta-referendum","tag-alberta-separation","tag-alberta-separatism","tag-british-columbia-media","tag-canada","tag-canadian-media","tag-canadian-newspapers","tag-digital-media","tag-future-of-news","tag-journalism","tag-journalism-in-canada","tag-media-in-british-columbia","tag-media-in-canada","tag-michael-geist","tag-nate-pike-the-breakdown","tag-new-media","tag-newspapers-in-canada","tag-steve-anderson","tag-the-breakdown-alberta","tag-the-tyee-podcast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}