Alberta's flag... extremist?! Lunatics say so... BOYCOTT incoming?
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
184.40489
Summary
Safeway has removed the Alberta flag from a store in Medicine Hat, Alberta. This is a win for those who would not wish to see Alberta's flag coopted for reasons other than pride in Alberta. Kudos to Safeway for taking a stance in turbulent times for Canada and the province.
Transcript
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Hi, it's John, and welcome to the channel. It is Friday, August the 1st. When I'm recording this,
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you're seeing it on Saturday, August the 2nd, early in the morning. Right now, it is 19.59.
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That means it is 7.59 p.m. for those of you who aren't into military time. I hope you're having
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a great evening. And tonight, I'm doing a video late because I saw something earlier this evening
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that really bugged me. It really bugged me. And I decided to react to this a little bit,
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but I'm going to act on this video tonight, and you're going to see that in just a moment. Now,
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who put up the video that really bugged me? Corey Morgan from the Western Standard and the Corey
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Morgan Show. Now, Corey doesn't bug me, but the topic bugged me. Here's Corey's YouTube channel.
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He's got less than 10,000 subscribers. For God's sakes, go over and subscribe to this man.
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He's got great content on his site. And if you're into the independence movement here in Alberta,
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he's one of the premier voices. He wrote a book on it, for God's sake. So, go subscribe
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to Corey's channel. Now, I'm not trying to benefit from Corey's work here. I'm not doing that.
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I'm going to play a little bit of this video for you in just a moment. Alberta's flag is under attack.
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You won't believe this. It's 11 and a half minutes long. So, go over and watch the whole thing. I'll
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put a link in the description so you can watch the whole video. But here's just a little bit of what
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Corey had to say to start off this video. Less than 20 seconds. Hey there. Well, we know the real race
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is on when it comes to the pursuit for Alberta independence when the anti-independence groups
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are actively trying to get Alberta flags pulled out of public spaces. They're trying to characterize
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the flag of Alberta as being extreme and that it shouldn't be displayed in public. Who's extreme here?
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And I wish I was kidding. So, Corey goes on in his video to talk about Thomas Lukasik,
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the former deputy premier of the province, who has this petition out. He's trying to get a
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referendum question to keep Alberta in Canada. You're aware of that. And he also goes on to talk
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about how people are now trying to make the Alberta flag look like its extremist. I'm not going to get
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deep into it. Go watch Corey's video. He explains the whole thing and he does quite the biography on
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Thomas Lukasik as well. But the reason he brought this up about Alberta's flag is under attack because
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on the Forever Canadian Facebook page, which is the Facebook page of Lukasik's
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little project here, this got posted by a guy named Sean Copeland yesterday at 512. And let me read this to
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you. This is an update to an earlier post I made regarding the display of an Alberta provincial
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flag in a Safeway store in Medicine Hat, Alberta. The flag has been removed at the request of Western
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Canada Regional Office. I did not approach the store manager personally. Please thank the upper
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management at Safeway, Sobeys, Empire Company. It appears that after relating my concerns to Safeway's
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Western Canada Regional Office, they have taken the decision to enforce their policy to ensure
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that their stores not appear to politicize Alberta's flag. I feel confident that this policy will be
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enforced at all of their stores. The decision to have the flag in this photo removed reinforces
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Safeway's long-term commitment to keep politics out of shopping. My original belief that there is a
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policy that discourages the display of the Alberta flag inside or outside of stores seems to have been
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accurate. Shopping locally means buying Canadian and by extension Albertan. This is not a rebuke of this
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manager or whatever political views they may hold. Simply a win for those who would not wish to see the Alberta
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flag co-opted for reasons other than pride in Alberta. Kudos to Safeway, Sobeys, and Empire Company for
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taking a stance in turbulent times for Canada and the province. And the responses to this, I won't get into it,
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but you can just imagine what people are saying about this. This is a big win for Mr. Copeland and the
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Forever Canadian campaign as they try to make the Alberta flag look like its extremist. And this sickens me. It really does.
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Corey goes on to state his views on how he feels about this as well. As a matter of fact, let me just
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take you back here real quick before I show you what I am going to do. If we go over to his channel
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here, Corey talks at the end about we need to display the Alberta flag everywhere we can. And on
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the video that I'm going to link below, you'll see that in the description, he's got all these links to
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Amazon where you can buy different Alberta flag paraphernalia. Okay, so keep that in mind. Now,
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what am I going to do? Well, as you can see in here, he talks about the Safeway, Sobeys, Empire
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Company. And he also talks about the Western Canada Regional Office. I'm writing a letter to both.
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Okay. And this is what I'm writing. So this is the Empire Company. And as you can see down here,
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they do food retailing. And here are the different companies they represent, including Safeway. And this
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is a medicine hat store, apparently, that took down the Alberta flag because it's political in
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some way. It's the other side that's politicizing this, folks, not us. But I'm writing a letter to
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the head office and I'm writing an email to the Western office as well. And here's what I'm writing.
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I will put my email address and phone number in later. Just saves me having to blur it out while
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I'm doing this right now. Okay. So let's go down here and read this. Hopefully I can do this. Okay.
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Okay. It has come to my attention through an influential Alberta YouTuber and media figure
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and a post on the Forever Canadian Facebook group that you have been approached by someone named
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Sean. I'll have to re-spell his name. It's not spelled that way. I will fix that. Sean Copeland
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and have now removed the Alberta flag at his request from a medicine hat store. To say I am incensed about
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this move by your company is an understatement. The Alberta flag is a symbol of pride in our province
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in Western culture and in the strong sense of community for all Albertans. Mr. Copeland's comments
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suggest you have been convinced it is a political statement and should be removed. It is not.
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It is representative of the examples I give above. I would like you to respond to this email and tell me
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if you have in fact removed the flag of Alberta from any of your stores and if you intend to do this
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in other stores across the province. Your response will determine my next action and
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how I instruct the 35,000 subscribers to my YouTube channel when it comes to how we patronize your
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stores. Bigger channels will follow suit and I put my name in my YouTube channel there and I'm sending
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these out as soon as I am done this video and I will get back to you as soon as I get any response at
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all. But folks, if I do not get a response, I will be doing a video shortly on how we can boycott these
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companies because this cannot stand. We have to stick up for our province. We have to stick up for
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the flag of our province. We are proud of our province. We're proud of our flag and as Corey says
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in his video, it's one of the few provinces, if not the only one across the country, that puts up their
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provincial flag and thinks of it proudly. And I'm with Corey 100% on this so I'm going to send these out
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immediately. Maybe a few revisions just to add a little bit more detail. But I just wanted to let
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you know this is happening and I will get back to you just like I did when it came to the letter I
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wrote to the Chief Electoral Officer of Alberta back in early June. I put a video up on the response
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to that just the other day. Thank you so much for watching. I'm working on another video. Perhaps it
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will come up today, meaning Saturday, August 2nd. If you did like this video, please let me know by
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giving it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for notifications and go over to
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Corey Morgan's video, watch the whole thing, give it a like and subscribe to Corey's channel as well.
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I'll see you in the next one. Oh yeah, got my big blue mug here, of course.