Jon Liedtke joins 610 CKTB’s Gene Valaitis for his regular weekly segment, Liedtke’s Got a Take!
Liedtke states Alberta’s 75% rejection of separation completely shuts down the movement. He heavily criticizes Premier Danielle Smith for the expensive, hand-counted referendum that catered to conspiracy theorists. Further, Liedtke insists that following reports of foreign interference and election loopholes, Ottawa should immediately secure future Canadian votes.
Transcript (Gemini Generated):
Gene Valaitis: Time for Liedtke’s Got a Take. Good morning, Jon.
Jon Liedtke: Good morning, Gene.
Gene Valaitis: Okay, so Alberta, 75% of the folks said no to a referendum to separate. Now, is this a total shutdown of the separatist movement or can Premier Danielle Smith still claim some kind of a victory?
Jon Liedtke: I think it’s a shutdown. I mean, let’s do the math here, right? These guys wanted to break away, form a sovereign nation, and build a global economic empire, and I understand this was just the starting process to get to the point of the actual vote that would have come. But they couldn’t even muster as many votes as the combined populations of St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, and Welland. I mean, they got outperformed by three mid-sized Ontario municipalities. Out of all of the electoral ridings across Alberta, I think they only managed to lead in one single rural riding. Edmonton wiped them out, Calgary rejected them. That’s not a political movement, that’s a loud table at The Keg on a Friday night.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. They don’t allow electronic tabulations in Alberta, even though we’re living in the age of artificial intelligence. So they had to hand count millions of ballots. So from a governance standpoint, was this a win for voter trust or just an expensive, outdated nightmare?
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, the fact that they banned the electronic tabulators for the vote, yeah, it’s an expensive 19th-century nightmare. Banning these tabulators to appease, let’s be honest, conspiracy theorists who think like, what, there’s a space laser that’s secretly controlled by Italy or George Soros or some other Trumpian ruse that we’ve heard? So they forced electoral workers and, if there’s volunteers, to hand count millions of paper responses through the night like they’re monks copying the Bible in silence. And polling stations, there were problems that were reported, the results took a long time to come in. But it turns out, as we know, that democracy isn’t cheap. But burning millions of taxpayer dollars to cater to local paranoia, that’s just plain administrative cowardice.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. Now, Smith says winning the remaining nine questions on things like immigration and provincial rights gives her major leverage when dealing with the Prime Minister. Now, did she really gain leverage, or is it completely gone now?
Jon Liedtke: What leverage? I mean, she claimed that she was going to have a massive mandate to bully Ottawa to succumb to what she wants, and her flagship constitutional push, the Question 8 where she asked to opt out of federal programs while keeping the federal cash, that’s currently losing right now. Her judges question is tied, the Senate question barely scraping by, her own separatist base, they’re already openly plotting the ouster at the UCP convention next month on social media and I’ve heard through some traditional media chatter. So she went to Ottawa to play hardball, essentially, and walked away with a deflated volleyball. I don’t see leverage that exists here and, frankly, I don’t see a long-term political future, either.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. The Prime Minister last night, this morning, is hailing this as a decisive win for Canadian unity. Did the separatists accomplish anything or just embarrass themselves?
Jon Liedtke: Canada won, Alberta won, the secessionists lost, period. I mean, you don’t get blown out 76 to 24 and claim that you’re dominating the conversation. That’s what a hockey team says when they lose 8-1. Again, they didn’t win a single major city. Calgary rejected them, Edmonton humiliated them, even Lethbridge and Red Deer told them to take a hike. But they spent months making noise, threatening the economy, claiming they were a silent majority, and it turns out they were just a very loud, very small minority. They proved that this isn’t a, you know, a serious movement that is a groundswell, and I think these people should be embarrassed at this outcome.
Gene Valaitis: So with the remainder of the questions that they’re still counting, numbers 1 through 9, should Ottawa just ignore the rest of the referendum and move on now, and just say, you know, “You had your chance, you blew it”?
Jon Liedtke: You know, I think Carney did the statesman thing, he put out the nice polished statement about unity and nation-building, and great. The only question on that ballot that actually mattered was, you know, the secession one. The rest of it is just administrative noise to keep Smith’s base busy. But we just spent months nationally flirting with an economic potential self-sabotage, while we know foreign money was stoking the flames. So Carney should take the win, sure, but we should all memory hole this entire expensive stunt and pretend that this embarrassing chapter never happened, and then get serious about, you know, securing our elections.
Gene Valaitis: Yeah, well, you mentioned dark money, there was the suggestion that there was foreign interference from the United States. So given that, what changes does Canada need to make to safeguard our elections and our Confederation moving forward? I mean, we’ve got to do something to protect ourselves.
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, I think we definitely do. We need to secure our elections in Canada, full stop. So we need to shut down the dark money pipelines, we need to plug that ridiculous loophole that let educational third parties dump unlimited untracked cash. But honestly, Gene, we need to stop letting provinces hold votes on leaving the country altogether. I mean, Alberta didn’t invent itself, Canada created Alberta. I mean, you don’t get to break up the house just because you don’t like the landlord. We’re a Confederation, we’re all in this together, and if you don’t like living in Canada, then, you know, my opinion, move.
Gene Valaitis: Great take this morning. As always, thank you, Jon.
Jon Liedtke: Thank you, Gene.
Gene Valaitis: All right, that’s Jon Liedtke with Liedtke’s Got a Take. Love that guy.
This aired on 610 CKTB
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