John Bolton - Chris Scott Is Told He Can't Speak In Public - Stands His Ground

00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John, and welcome to the channel. It is 2.07 a.m., Thursday, August the 20th. Great

00:00:08.660 to have you here today. Thank you so much. And I woke up this morning about an hour or

00:00:15.420 so ago, and I started thinking about what happened yesterday in Strathmore. Now, the

00:00:20.560 day started off great, okay? But I was at a point yesterday in Strathmore around 4, 4.30

00:00:26.860 in the afternoon where I thought Chris Scott was going to be led away in handcuffs. Honestly,

00:00:32.300 it dawned on me that we could be having a big event in Strathmore this weekend that would make

00:00:38.900 the event we had in Sundry, remember when they kept the float out of the parade with Alberta

00:00:44.880 flags on it? Remember we all showed up there? I thought it would make that event in Sundry look

00:00:49.620 like a child's birthday party because I really thought for a moment Chris was going to be

00:00:54.040 arrested. Now, I'm going to show video that I recorded on my phone with Chris and a Strathmore

00:01:00.040 City official in just a moment. I did an interview with Chris to talk about what happened yesterday,

00:01:04.840 but I think there's something to be learned here, okay? Very often when I do videos here,

00:01:12.140 I wait to think about the story before I comment on it, and I've had a chance to think about this,

00:01:19.320 and there is something we can all learn, and I learned from yesterday. And what Chris did

00:01:24.140 yesterday was really a masterclass, okay? So stay tuned for that video. So what did I do yesterday?

00:01:29.460 Well, I went out with Chris on his RV. I don't know what we're going to call it. We might have

00:01:35.040 a contest to name his bus, but we'll call it the Let's Talk Alberta Express, okay? And here's the

00:01:40.520 bus right here. As I was out yesterday, I went out there with Tanya Clemens, a number of other

00:01:45.260 people on the RV. We visited all of these different places. I was in Brooks, Duchess,

00:01:50.400 Rosemary, Countess, Bassano, and Strathmore is where I had to break off because I had to get

00:01:55.300 home. But I was there between 3.30 and 4.30 with a lot of people. 20 or 30 people showed up

00:02:00.440 to pick up some signs and talk with Chris with his RV. So here's Chris driving the bus yesterday.

00:02:10.700 Let me show you a little bit of that. It was a great day. It was a wonderful day.

00:02:15.260 so I'm up talking to some people in Strathmore and I look over and Chris is having an animated

00:02:21.760 discussion with a large man. So I went over with my camera and I started recording. And this is

00:02:29.600 what I recorded the interaction between Chris and the city official of Strathmore who wanted us to

00:02:35.320 leave because we were talking. Now I have edited this video a little bit. I've taken out no context,

00:02:41.680 But you have to imagine, I was just recording with my phone, there was a lot of crash chatter that was getting, well, it was distracting from what was being said, but I haven't taken out any context here at all.

00:02:53.120 So this is Chris talking to this city official, and then I'll have an interview I did with Chris after this to talk about this, and then we'll find out what we learned from this event in Strathmore yesterday.

00:03:04.040 I think it would be a very poor decision for the town to expel someone from the public

00:03:09.120 property front, even if they decided to express their public opinions.

00:03:12.820 That's charter protected.

00:03:14.960 And any of your municipal bylaws, any provincial statutes have to comply with that.

00:03:19.120 And if they don't, then that's really your guys' problem, not mine.

00:03:23.760 What we're saying though, sir, is that you can express all your opinions all you want,

00:03:27.040 just not on our account properly.

00:03:28.280 But I can't.

00:03:29.280 It's public property.

00:03:30.280 I'm happy to fight it.

00:03:31.280 Like, I'm not going to concede this to you.

00:03:33.480 I appreciate you, for whatever reason, coming down.

00:03:36.200 We're literally parked out of the way.

00:03:38.600 There's people that came to talk about something that's important to them.

00:03:41.540 And I'm really actually offended that the town would decide they want to interfere with that.

00:03:46.020 That's not neutrality.

00:03:47.300 That's literally saying that Strathmore doesn't believe that people should be able to assemble for political purpose.

00:03:51.400 No, we're saying that you can.

00:03:53.080 No, you're not.

00:03:53.420 It's not on town's property.

00:03:55.760 It's not true.

00:03:57.500 I reject that notion.

00:04:00.280 I'd be happy to discuss it.

00:04:02.300 What are you protecting the community? I'd like to take one of those are I'd like I'll take a picture of it

00:04:14.480 My role oversees social services recreation

00:04:19.780 tyranny yep

00:04:24.000 That's my rule, so it's community residential services, right? 0.94

00:04:27.320 Sure, so what are you protecting?

00:04:29.360 Municipal bylaws.

00:04:30.160 Would you mind if I took a picture of that part?

00:04:32.200 What are you enforcing?

00:04:33.900 Municipal bylaws as well as...

00:04:35.400 Which one?

00:04:36.600 In this case, none, sir.

00:04:37.820 We won't do that.

00:04:38.780 Okay.

00:04:39.060 Right?

00:04:39.480 So then why are you here?

00:04:40.680 Because you're on town property.

00:04:42.260 Okay.

00:04:42.660 We're asking you to leave.

00:04:44.200 You can have whatever you want.

00:04:46.060 You can park your bus.

00:04:48.140 Or, sorry, not really a bus, but some older homes.

00:04:50.880 Anywhere else and do this.

00:04:52.020 That's actually a personally registered RV.

00:04:53.660 Okay. So do you ask everybody that parks their personally registered RV to move to leave?

00:04:57.660 If we choose to.

00:04:59.660 Oh, there you go. Truth comes out. Beautiful.

00:05:03.660 Thank you very much. Typical.

00:05:06.660 Well, I mean, this is not the first time I've been arrested.

00:05:09.660 Unbelievable.

00:05:10.660 But I appreciate you taking the time.

00:05:12.660 Well, like I said, this is nothing against you as an individual.

00:05:15.660 It is. It is.

00:05:16.660 You just said it was.

00:05:18.660 Just admitted to it.

00:05:20.660 It's against him. That's why he's standing here.

00:05:22.660 The town has to abide by the charges.

00:05:24.680 I've been for this a dozen times.

00:05:25.780 You're not going to win.

00:05:26.560 All right.

00:05:27.040 So, I mean, I appreciate it, and I'm not interested in having a conversation.

00:05:32.200 So, if the RCMP are coming, then they can come, and I'll spend a weekend in jail,

00:05:36.840 and then we'll have a really big bill for the event.

00:05:40.360 Sounds good.

00:05:41.480 Okay.

00:05:42.660 Thank you for your protective service.

00:05:44.520 Appreciate it.

00:05:45.820 So, Chris stood his ground with that city official.

00:05:48.540 he ends up talking to another city official, which I didn't get on camera, but we'll discuss

00:05:54.300 in just a moment in the interview I did with Chris right after this. But really, when I was

00:06:00.360 standing there, I looked at this police officer standing just behind the guy that was talking to

00:06:04.680 Chris there, and I thought he was going to put Chris in handcuffs and walk him away. I thought

00:06:09.540 for sure there would be 10 to 20,000 people in Strathmore this weekend protesting the arrest

00:06:14.480 of Chris Scott, who is a hero to a lot of people in Canada and across Alberta for what he did

00:06:20.720 during COVID. We also discuss your rights, which are slowly being eroded away, in particular your

00:06:28.540 free speech rights. You need to know what your rights are, and Chris certainly knows what his

00:06:33.620 rights are, unfortunately, because of previous circumstances he's been through. But here's the

00:06:38.960 interview I did with Chris just moments after this situation was resolved. And I guess a disaster

00:06:46.440 was averted in Strathmore yesterday. Here in Strathmore with Chris Scott. Chris, this has been

00:06:52.140 a really remarkable day so far. We started off way down in Brooks, moved our way up here to

00:06:56.940 Strathmore. You pulled up your bus right behind. Not a lot of people here other than people that

00:07:02.560 came out to see you and Let's Talk Alberta. And we got visited by the city of Strathmore. Explain

00:07:07.880 what's going on here uh it's honestly my my brain's turning to a little bit of mush trying

00:07:14.040 to process all this but basically what happened is i'm sure the city got a complaint from someone

00:07:17.920 saying the dirty seppies are going to be in the park and we don't like it so the town sent someone

00:07:23.260 down to tell me that i wasn't allowed to be here and when i asked why we're not allowed to be here

00:07:28.800 he said because the town uh doesn't get involved in politics or whatever which is complete absolute

00:07:36.460 nonsense it doesn't matter what the town wants to get involved and these are public spaces for the

00:07:39.980 public to do as the public wishes within the confines of the the actual law right right so

00:07:45.040 they so they wanted us to leave because they didn't agree with my message they think my message

00:07:48.880 is to tell people how to vote but my message is there are things that are important to us as

00:07:54.500 Albertans that we need to talk about we want to talk about things I'm not telling you what to

00:07:58.280 think you know what I think I'll tell you what I think and then I want to hear what you think

00:08:02.440 that's our message well the side of your bus is let's talk Alberta so that's pretty clear what's

00:08:06.200 going on here so people people came down here to meet you today come down to talk to you today

00:08:10.300 looking for some signs and things like that there was a police officer here as well um and the rcmp

00:08:15.860 were called he never did speak to the rcmp i think you spoke i think it was the maybe the city manager

00:08:21.000 or one of the managers of the city he was on the phone with you if you really want to get what

00:08:25.540 happened during that phone call you did a live stream of it so you can check that out on chris's

00:08:29.940 channel but what did the manager say to you well he he seemed a little frustrated like he was i

00:08:37.420 don't think he was a happy camper um but he basically said that i need to ask for permission

00:08:42.900 to be on the town property and i i said well it's public property the town manages it but it's for

00:08:48.880 the public and i'm the public and he said no you have to ask for permission so if you ask for

00:08:55.700 permission i'll say yes and we'll allow you to use it and i said i'm uncomfortable asking permission

00:09:01.560 to do something that's guaranteed to be under the charter rights of freedoms as a canadian as an

00:09:06.140 albertan we can gather for political purpose we are free to express our opinion we have the freedom

00:09:12.420 of thought religion and expression we have the freedom of a peaceful assembly and if i'm doing

00:09:19.380 those things i'm not going to ask anybody permission so the the the kind of threat was

00:09:24.960 well, if I don't ask permission, the RCMP are there, and then I'll be dealt with. And dealt

00:09:29.140 with could mean fine, it could mean jail, whatever, right? But I'm sorry, I would rather sit in a jail

00:09:34.840 cell than concede that I need to ask permission for my rights. Yeah, you were very clear in that,

00:09:39.760 that you were going to do that. And we applaud you for the way you handled the situation. Thank

00:09:43.760 you. There's a saying, if you don't use your rights, you'll lose your rights. And you've got

00:09:48.720 to make sure you use them, because we do have rights to be in a public park. What are you going

00:09:52.920 to do moving forward i mean you did concede that you know maybe we should let people know they

00:09:57.120 suggested if somebody else was using the park we might be in the way so and that's fair yeah and

00:10:01.180 it is fair yes yeah but in this case i mean we're there's only a few other cars here there's lots

00:10:04.940 of space there's obviously nobody using the facility we're not interfering with anything

00:10:08.640 if we did arrive and there was somebody in uh using the space of course we wouldn't interfere

00:10:14.000 with it that's just common courtesy right but i did concede that uh going forward if we come back

00:10:18.600 then we'll just give them a heads up and say hey we're going to be here to make sure we're not

00:10:21.680 interfering with anyone else's activity that's fair yeah check out i um i recorded the whole

00:10:25.720 thing and it's on your channel see see the way chris handled this because you need to be very

00:10:29.660 polite and when you're polite and you explain things people seem to understand a little bit

00:10:34.260 better who was the guy who came over to you originally what was his name again um i think

00:10:37.800 you have his card he was a something about public safety nice guy uh mark mark pretzlaff now to be

00:10:44.480 fair john i think what's happened here is there are a lot of people that disagree with me being

00:10:49.420 allowed to speak they don't want me to be allowed to speak because they don't like what i speak

00:10:53.040 about so they want to cancel me rather than debate me on the topics that i speak about

00:10:57.280 they want to cancel me so i'm almost 100 sure that strathmore town office was inundated with

00:11:03.020 phone calls about the dirty seppies who are going to be occupying the park and we don't want them

00:11:09.240 there well i don't care what people want i i have the right to express myself as well and i and 0.64

00:11:15.080 that's that's what this is all about tell me that you don't like what i'm saying and then debate me

00:11:19.140 on the topic right right george washington said if freedom of speech is taken away then deaf and

00:11:24.680 blind we shall be led like sheep to the slaughter make sure you stick up for your rights and make

00:11:29.300 sure you know your rights john we don't have freedom of speech in canada no it's true and i

00:11:36.300 don't know you don't have rights either because they can take them away with section one of the

00:11:39.500 of the charter of rights and freedoms if the government does if the government decides you

00:11:43.780 shouldn't have your rights you don't have them i've experienced that i was arrested for protesting

00:11:46.920 peacefully on my property. Now, freedom of speech is nowhere in our Constitution. It is not in the

00:11:51.880 Charter Rights and Freedoms. We don't have freedom of speech. That's why bills like C9 have been

00:11:55.820 allowed to be passed into law. Right. Right. The anti-hate speech. If you have freedom of speech,

00:11:59.740 they cannot censor your speech. Look at what's happening in the United States. People, they test

00:12:03.400 that all the time and they win. We are free to assemble for political purpose. We're free to

00:12:09.120 express our opinions. And that's what I'm doing. Right. Well, thanks, Chris. Thanks very much. I

00:12:12.340 appreciate it. Thanks for the day. I have to head back to Calgary now. You guys are heading up Airdrie

00:12:16.180 and back up north thanks for the day thanks for doing this of course thanks for speaking out on

00:12:20.340 behalf of so many people we really admire you yeah thanks for being here john i'm glad you got to see

00:12:24.820 the most exciting most exciting uh was certainly interesting at the end yeah for sure so the day

00:12:31.020 was great yesterday with the bump in the road in strathmore started great bump in the road chris

00:12:35.740 gets back on the let's talk alberta express and off to the north he goes back up to mirror but

00:12:41.320 there's something to be learned here. And Chris showed us how to do it yesterday. Go back and

00:12:46.260 watch the video of him talking to Mr. Pretzlaff, the Director of Community and Protective Services

00:12:51.560 in Strathmore. He kept his cool. He knew his rights. He stood up for what he believed in.

00:12:58.440 And everything worked out fine in the end. And you need to understand this. Yesterday marked

00:13:03.400 two months to the day until we have the referendum on October the 19th. And there's going to probably

00:13:09.180 be more of these things happening. People are going to get very emotional, particularly the

00:13:13.600 other side. Yesterday when that was happening, when Chris was talking to Mr. Pretzlaff from

00:13:19.540 Strathmore, I looked around and people were mad. They were mad and I was mad as well that a city

00:13:26.060 official would come up to us and tell us we couldn't talk in a city park, in a public space.

00:13:33.520 And more of this is going to happen as we get closer to October the 19th. I was talking to

00:13:37.580 somebody yesterday. They're trying to arrange an event. They keep shutting them down because

00:13:41.740 they're an independence event. The other side is overly emotional. I don't even think they know

00:13:46.340 what the question is about in the fall, in October. I don't think they do. I think they're

00:13:50.720 ignorant. We have to educate these people, but we have to stand up for what we believe in. Know 0.98

00:13:55.940 your rights and stand up for what you believe in and watch that video again. That's exactly how you

00:14:01.600 handle a situation like this. If you're approached by a forever Canadian person and they're yelling 0.96

00:14:05.720 at you. Keep your cool. All right. We're going to win this thing. I'm really excited. We're going

00:14:12.040 to win this thing. Got a lot of minds to change in the next two months, but the real hard work

00:14:17.240 is coming up right after Labor Day. The last five weeks, six weeks of this, it's going to be

00:14:21.680 terribly important. So don't get weary. Don't get tired. Work even harder. I plan on doing that as

00:14:27.940 well. Thank you very much to Chris Scott, Tanya Clemens, everybody on the Let's Talk Alberta

00:14:33.060 Express yesterday. It was a fantastic day with an interesting bump in the road, but it all worked

00:14:39.800 out in the end. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, ring the

00:14:43.720 bell for notifications. I'll see you in the next one. And I'm going to go back to bed.

John Bolton - August 20, 2026

Chris Scott Is Told He Can't Speak In Public - Stands His Ground

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