Court Rules Against The Petition - Mitch Sylvestre Responds
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Summary
Stay Free Alberta's Mitch Sylvester joins the show to talk about the recent Supreme Court ruling regarding the petition to hold a referendum on Alberta's independence from the United Conservative Party of Canada. Stay Free Alberta has over 300,000 signatures in support of their call for a referendum.
Transcript
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Hi, it's John, and welcome to the channel, 4 o'clock in the afternoon, Wednesday, May
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Great to have you along today with the big blue mug of coffee, tasting sweet this afternoon,
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but there's a little bit of bitterness in the coffee, it seems, after a decision came
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down that came across my phone about, well, within the last hour or so, and you've probably
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been following along with it as well, and this is the court decision regarding the petitions
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that were handed in just a couple of Mondays ago by Stay Free Alberta
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and the man you see on the screen right now, Mitch Sylvester.
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I heard about this, sent you a quick message, and you said you would talk to me.
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The first question, I guess, is are you disappointed and are you surprised?
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To tell you the honest-to-God truth, I've been saying this for a couple weeks,
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We've sent the government a very strong mandate of 301,000 signatures of Albertans that want this referendum for independence.
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We always knew it was going to be dropped in the Premier's lap.
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And based on Section 1 of the Referendum Act, she's going to have to call this vote.
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We knew we were not going to win this court case.
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But what that does for us is it actually shows us exactly what we already know.
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it just reinforces that, that we have to show up and we have to take control of our own process
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in order to win. So stay tuned. We're going to have a rally, the mother of all rallies,
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as far as I can. We're looking for a place to hold it right now. And we're going to have it
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in the next couple of weeks. And just be aware that we're going to expect every single one of
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you there. It's going to be one of these things that we're going to say, look, you remember back
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in the day, while some of you may, some of you may not remember, but I asked everybody for 10 days.
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This is day number one. This is the biggest day that we have to make a statement. We have to tell
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and show the UCP that, look, this is important. We've been on this path for a month. We've been
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selling memberships to the UCP just because we're expecting this very thing. So where we are right
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now is we're in a position where we have to explain to the UCP that the largest part of
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their membership is independence people. And they acknowledge that. I'm sure they do that.
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They give us the opportunity to have the vote. So now we have to show up and show them that
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that's actually who we are. I'm not sure if these numbers are correct. I heard that in the last
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election, about 600,000 people voted in the last provincial election. Over 300,000 people signed
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this petition. So that is certainly a message for Danielle Smith and the UCP that, you know,
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we really want to be heard here. Now, what I'm concerned about, and I'm sure a lot of people who
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worked very hard over four months, you saw those boxes when you handed them in, you had a big grin
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on your face, those people sitting in the snow. What happens to the signatures? They were sealed
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up. They're sitting at Elections Alberta, for all I know. You counted them, thank God. We know
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there's over 300,000 signatures there. Are these going to be destroyed, all that work, and never
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be counted because of this judge's decision well i don't think you should look at it that way okay
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uh i think i think that what happened when we collected 301 000 signatures is we showed the
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premier and the ucp government that there's 301 000 albertans that are prepared and i believe
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the number is actually real i i i know that the number is actually real our our process was very
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stringent i would be surprised if there was any attrition in those signatures uh they had to be
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They had to be signed by the person that was actually signing the paper to authorize that they were actually there.
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They had to be vetted according to living in Alberta or not, their age.
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But the way you have to see this is that you all showed up.
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and you told the premier of Alberta, look, there's 301,000 people that have the courage
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to sign this petition. That number is not going to change whether they destroy it or not.
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That number is the message. And, you know, they play around with it and say, well, we need it.
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They asked for 177,000 to trigger the referendum vote. They got 301. So our premier,
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right from the beginning, was going to be tasked with making this call. And you've showed her in
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large way that you want to vote on Alberta independence. So don't ever despair and say
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that all the work that we've done was for naught. It was totally not for naught. This would not be
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happening without that. And so you should all continue to be proud of yourselves, as proud
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of yourselves as we all are for all the work that went into that. And, you know, it's not for naught
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at all. As a matter of fact, like I said, I'll repeat it. Without that, we don't have a chance
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moving forward. Right. Jeff Rath, your counsel here, who was in court, says we disagree
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fundamentally with the decision which appears on its face to violate principles of natural justice
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and contain numerous errors of law. We have been instructed to prepare and file the appropriate
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appellate documents. So you talked about an appeal. How long would this stretch on? And
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do you think you could win it if you appeal? No. Yeah. But we knew we weren't going to win
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any of this from the start. That's why everybody said, oh, Mitch, you're pretty relaxed. Well,
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I'm relaxed because I was expecting this from the start. We've got a contingency plan here.
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We never thought this was going to be easy. We knew they were going to throw everything in the
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world at us. They don't want to lose 47 to $57 billion a year in income every year for the next
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100 years. They totally understand what's at stake. They're going to do everything they can
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to stop this. But on the other hand, if we do everything we can to make sure it happens,
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it's going to happen and i believe this right here is just going to make our people angrier
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it's just going to make our movement stronger um i can't you know carney's going to come to alberta
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on friday you know after they planned all this you notice how the judgment comes today and now
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currently's going to come riding in on friday and he's going to say well you know from what i
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understand he's going to say we're going to have an increase in carbon tax and probably say that
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we're going to hook up jason kenny's pipeline he's going to take credit for that and say that
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that's going to save us well pipeline's not going to save alberta from us we understand that you
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know i mean if there's more money they're just going to take it all it's not going to be any
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not going to be any benefit to us so you know what i think i think the the cat is out of the bag
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i think people understand what's going on here and the more of this stuff that goes on
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the clearer it becomes yeah and it pushes people over to the independent side we had the numbers
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just come out a few days ago saying 46 of the indigenous people in this province would vote
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in favor. And I'm sure a lot of those people who are on the 54% side would do the same,
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but I think they're probably a little afraid to sign up or be part of this. Now, let me ask you
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this. Do you think that this decision is unfair? We've got a very small percentage of people who
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are indigenous, a very small percentage of Alberta is their land, yet they're making a decision based
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on all of these people and 5 million people in the province, 300,000 people who signed
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on a petition to get this done for a democratic process.
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Well, I mean, I don't want to blame Aboriginal people for this.
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I mean, the federal government has been pushing this.
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So we totally understand where this comes from.
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So that could possibly be 60% of Aboriginal people that are in favor of independence.
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Because they hate the federal government as much as we do.
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If you ever talk to them, they've gotten a raw deal from the federal government.
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Unfortunately, it's the province of Alberta's land.
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And, you know, I mean, Aboriginal people don't even own the land that they live on.
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it's all um it's all belongs to the government of canada so so you know what we can do way better
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for them and uh i believe that that's going to be the goal and we want to do way better for all
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albertans and aboriginals can get a hand up and uh let's uh let's move the whole province on with
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you know the shiny example uh of what we can do um if we don't have government with their hands
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in our pockets and uh doing all the nefarious things the things that they've been doing to us
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who have worked so hard at this over four months
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I'm sure it could be the mother of all get togethers.
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We're actively looking for a place to hold it right now.
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I'm hoping we'll have 50,000 to 100,000 people there.
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I'll say thank you to all the people that did the work.
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The same thing, basically, that I've always told her.
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I've asked her five times if she would lead Alberta into being a new country.
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I've asked her that, you know what, that would make it quite a bit easier for everybody, including us, if she would absolutely decide that if the vote was in, you know, in our favor, that she would, you know, plan the succession, like plan, you know, if she calls the vote, I believe she's going to have to make plans for Albertans to make sure that there's a smooth transition to the other side.
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And I really believe that based on the fact that hopefully that, you know, that government, the UCP government allowed us to have what should be a Citizens Initiative referendum, where the people still have the ability to call the government based on a referendum to action, which is apparently we no longer have.
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So I just want people to, you know, to internalize that, to quote Jeff, you know, to internalize the fact that they've basically given us no way to petition the government now based on this ruling.
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So we've lost a bit of our democracy here, a big bit of our democracy.
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So I expect the premier to call vote, to tell you the honest to God truth.
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And I expect her to call a vote on independence.
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And she's always championed the fact that she likes the direct democracy system.
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So, you know, here's her chance to stand up and show us that she will.
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I have all the faith in the world that she will.
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I've had, I've asked many, many people at many, many town halls, if this comes to a
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vote between Alberta independence or the premier of Alberta, whoever that is, which way will
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I did not have one person in a hundred town halls tell me that they would choose the
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premier, whoever that was. Is this, as you said in the legislature today, I'm going to go and read
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the judgment. And that just came out a few minutes ago. And then we'll be looking at talking with the
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committee that is reviewing another question, the Forever Canada petition that's going through a
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legislative review committee right now. I don't know. I don't, I don't understand. I don't believe
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the Forever Canada petition can actually trigger a vote because I don't think it's a constitutional
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thing. I don't believe that's true. Is this a stalling situation? Because they're waiting for
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another petition in June. I believe that's the coal one Corb Lund is involved with. Are they
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stalling to the point where this will never be called? Let me ask you that. Well, absolutely.
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I mean, Justice Fisbee himself said that Thomas Lukasik's petition is a nothing burglar. He said
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it twice, right in court. As a matter of fact, I was shocked that he would say that. We all knew
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that based on the transfer payment vote that we had several years ago
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You have to open the Constitution to make meaningful change.
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and ours is the question that's going to open the Constitution.
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So I don't believe the UCP is going to get away with playing those games
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So we've been selling UCP memberships for months.
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this is your leverage against them and let's practice something that used to be uh something
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that we thought was a real deal we thought that government listened to the people that it was a
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bottom-up situation and forever now this has been a top-down situation and uh you know what maybe
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now's the time to send government a message i want to ask people this go ahead yeah i want to ask you
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i want to finish up on this but you know i i saw this decision come down i wasn't surprised i've
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spoken to you before um i knew that you thought that this wouldn't be um in our favor but i'm
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sure a lot of people were very disappointed this afternoon what are your what are your
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final words to them what should they how should they be feeling tonight as they uh as they have
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dinner energized okay energized because here's the thing we were always going to have to deal
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with this this was not something that we didn't expect this was we expected them to throw everything
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at us. This is one of those things. We have to show up. We have to continue to show up and just
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understand this. This is very winnable. We can't just, every time we have a setback, we can't
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think that, oh my God, the sky's falling because it's not falling. We're in a good position. We'll
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still be in a good position. And moving forward, let's exercise the power that we have. We all
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have to show up in big numbers. That's our power. That will intimidate government. That will win
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this. So let's make sure we do that. I lied. One more question. Will there be a vote on
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independence in October? Say again? Will there be a vote on independence in October? Yes. Okay. So
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that's your final word. Yes. Okay. So that's leaving it on an optimistic note. Mitch, as always,
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thank you so much for talking to me. I got in touch with you. I know you've been rather busy
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this afternoon. Yeah, it's been a busy day. Yeah, you got back to me very quick, and I always
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appreciate your time. And the people, they want to win this thing for you, Mitch, and we all want
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to win this thing. So I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. I'm feeling actually a little
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bit better as well. So thank you for your time. Just understand this. We want to win it for them
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too. It's for all of Alberta and all of Albertans. Mitch Sylvester from Stay Free Alberta,
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the Alberta Prosperity Project. We appreciate your time right now. And not a setback. Let's
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keep working and let's go. Let's keep going, eh, Mitch? We've got to keep going. So thank you very
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much for watching. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, ring
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the bell for notifications. I will see you in the next one.