In this episode of the Independence Calendar, John talks about the amazing work going on across the province of Alberta, and what you can do to be a part of it. He also talks about a new idea he has in the works.
00:00:00.000Hi, it's John and welcome to the Independence Calendar for Sunday, February the 8th, episode
00:00:08.080number 10. I tip my big blue mug to all my friends in Independence today. I appreciate you clicking
00:00:13.780on the video, but even more, I appreciate you contributing to the calendar on a weekly basis,
00:00:19.500and boy, are you contributing. It took me more than three hours to get through the email I've
00:00:24.160received in the last week, but I love it. So keep sending them to me, johnboltonab at gmail.com.
00:00:29.920Your pictures, your videos, anything Alberta Independence, I want to hear from you. Thanks
00:00:33.880again for doing that. So I just want to make a point as well that I try to read as much of the
00:00:38.680email as possible. I cannot respond to all of the email, and if I do, it's probably a pretty short
00:00:46.060note. I'm not being dismissive. It's just I get so much email now. It's hard to go through all of them
00:00:51.320and respond to everybody, so I hope you can appreciate that. Now, one more thing before I
00:00:55.360move on, I'm having a little issue with my speech right now. I do have some dental work I have to
00:01:01.580have done later this week, and my tongue just isn't working properly, so please excuse me. I just wanted
00:01:06.300to get that out in the open. So what's coming up on the calendar this week? We got a jam-packed show.
00:01:12.040Couldn't do it without you. It's been a great week for Alberta Independence. I was at an event
00:01:17.080Thursday night on the 6th, I believe it was, in Northwest Calgary. I was lucky enough to be an MC there.
00:01:22.920More on that in just a couple of minutes. We've got pop-up petition places happening everywhere.
00:01:27.540I went out on Saturday and went to a few of them. We'll talk a little bit about that and where they're
00:01:31.580happening across the province as well. Of course, the best place to go to get any information for
00:01:36.820petition places or speaking events as well would be stayfreealberta.com. Also, I do have plans for
00:01:43.940an event. I've been talking about this for a couple of weeks, and I'm going to explain what's going on.
00:01:48.900I actually had somebody come up to me on Thursday night and ask me about this. If we can pull off
00:01:53.820what I'm thinking, it will be unique, and you can be part of it. I'll tell you about that as well.
00:01:58.560Plus, some X accounts you can follow. A lot of people say to me, we don't have the facts we need.
00:02:03.280Well, I've got a couple of X accounts you can go to. I'm going to try to focus in on independence-minded
00:02:07.840X accounts where you can go and get information and spread the word about Alberta Independence.
00:02:13.180The submissions I got this week, more than 30 of them, so I'm going to have to go through them
00:02:18.420quickly. But I've got your submissions of pictures and videos this week, which is just outstanding.
00:02:23.340You're going to love it. And I spoke with Jeff Rath earlier this week. Jeff, all over the media,
00:02:28.680in particular on CTV, making a real splash, kind of going viral. So I did speak to Jeff after those two
00:02:35.460spots he had on CTV, and I'll have a segment of the interview I did with Jeff a little bit later on.
00:02:42.140So, I wanted to start off with this. I saw this earlier this week. February 2nd was Groundhog Day.
00:02:49.760And I saw this posted on X. I had to save it and show it to you. The groundhog saw his shadow today,
00:02:55.480and we only have eight more months of Canada left. And check out the shape of the shadow. To whoever
00:03:02.320put this together, thanks so much. And I appreciate you putting that up. Now, the other night I was at
00:03:07.100the Dalhousie Community Center. Here's just a short little video I shot. Mitch Sylvester was
00:03:12.120there. And this is how good things are going with the independence movement right now. I want to say
00:03:17.960how to Heather Field, who was the person behind this event, and all the volunteers that put this
00:03:22.760event on at the Dalhousie Community Center the other night. We found out basically on late on Monday,
00:03:28.820this event was happening on Thursday night, and the place was packed. Those seats eventually were
00:03:33.240filled, the ones you saw at the beginning there. Mitch Sylvester was speaking. Jeff Rath,
00:03:37.040unfortunately, was sick. Couldn't show up. But a big thumbs up to Dennis Kelma. Now, Dennis,
00:03:42.380you may know Dennis because he wrote this along with Jeff, the value of freedom, the costed out plan
00:03:47.900for Alberta independence. Dennis came out, and the Q&A that Mitch and Dennis did at the end of this
00:03:53.220event was just terrific. So many great questions, and they had all of the answers. So a big thumbs up
00:03:59.360to Mitch Sylvester, a big thumbs up to Dennis Kelma, Heather Field for putting the event on,
00:04:03.820and a thumbs up to you as well for being at the event. Now, what I want to do right now is kind
00:04:08.600of give you some information on petition places. I'm going to have a scroll of some of them in just a
00:04:13.620bit, and I can't show them all to you. There's so many of them, but so many people going out and just
00:04:19.120popping up, pop-up petition places, I think is what we can call them. And I went out to a bunch of
00:04:24.400them yesterday, and I thought I'd show you this post from Stay Free Alberta on their X account.
00:04:28.980They're asking you to post your pictures there. So if you've got an X account, be sure to do this.
00:04:33.720Post photos of your canvasser locations and tag Stay Free Alberta at Stay Free Alberta and
00:04:39.080hashtag Stay Free Alberta. And I did that this morning. Here's one I went to yesterday. My friend
00:04:43.980Jeevan Mangat set up this one in Fish Creek Park. Here's another one, the new Brighton Athletic Park,
00:04:49.980not too far from where I live here in Calgary. They were signing up people while I was there.
00:04:54.440Back in the background here, this is Shanna. Shanna is set up. She was expecting more canvassers
00:04:59.260to come up. She got there early, so she was signing up people in a parking lot in Southwest
00:05:03.240Calgary yesterday. I did a video, by the way, of all the places I visited, which I'll put
00:05:07.820in a card at the end of this video. You can watch it if you like. And then this is the Sue Higgins
00:05:12.500Dog Walk Park. They had a great location. Just to the left of this, over to the side, there's a huge
00:05:17.740parking lot, and they had people walking across the street. You can see a couple of people right here
00:05:21.460signing the petition there. So pop-up petition places happening all over the province right now.
00:05:26.360It really is quite astounding. And you can still become a canvasser and do this yourself.
00:05:30.520Now, how can you help? More on the petition places in just a moment, but how can you help?
00:05:35.640Go over to stayfreealberta.com, and you're going to find this. Okay, great graphics here. And down here,
00:05:41.900you'll find these three buttons. But don't forget to click on how and where to sign at the top here,
00:05:47.700because I get people getting in touch with me at my email address saying, John, I can't get out.
00:05:53.520I can't stand in line. I've got a physical disability. I can't do it. Well, if you click
00:05:57.800down here on request to sign, right here, you can put your name and your address and your information
00:06:04.420in here, and somebody will come by and see you. So you can sign the petition. So make sure you do that.
00:06:10.820And a guest right here is Stay Free Alberta on their X account. If you haven't been able to go to a
00:06:15.380petition signing event for various reasons, you can request to sign the petition, and one of our
00:06:20.720Stay Free Alberta canvassers will come to you. So if you're concerned about that, here is your answer.
00:06:27.160Now, you can also donate. Stay Free Alberta saying, please donate to make an impact, and you can still
00:06:32.260become a canvasser. And thank you to all the canvassers for working so hard to get signatures.
00:06:38.100Now, I do want to talk about something I've mentioned a few times over the last couple of weeks. As a
00:06:45.360night, somebody came up and asked about this. I've been saying I want to do an event here in
00:06:49.340Southeast Calgary. And a lot of you have emailed me and say you want to help. I was bound and determined
00:06:55.960to get something inside because we don't know what the weather is going to be like. It has been
00:06:59.420outstanding here in Calgary. Yesterday was like a warm spring day. But by this time next week, it could
00:07:04.560be minus 35 degrees. Kind of hard to do petition signing when it gets that cold. I've given up on an
00:07:10.820inside event. It's just too hard. As soon as you start spending money, it becomes kind of difficult
00:07:16.100for Stay Free Alberta. And certainly, there are rules when it comes to Elections Alberta. It's
00:07:20.680just very challenging to do that. So we're going to have to do something outside. I was out the other
00:07:24.880day with my friend Jeevan Mangat. We were having coffee, and we came up with something kind of unique.
00:07:30.580And that's all I can say right now. But keep in mind that this has to be sort of a floating date here.
00:07:35.620We have to look at the forecast on a Monday and say, the weekend's going to be nice.
00:07:39.380So then we'll let you know about it just prior to that. But to those of you who have sent me
00:07:44.140information saying you want to help, I have flagged your email, and I will be in touch and
00:07:49.300will tell you when we get this thing underway. But it is a unique event I think everybody will
00:07:54.240be talking about. So stay tuned for that. Now, for those of you who want to go out to a petition
00:07:58.420signing now, go over to stayfreealberta.com. And you can go to this, just go to how and where to sign.
00:08:05.840They do have this searchable database here. Let's see if there's anything going on in Lethbridge.
00:08:09.240Yeah, a couple of things in Lethbridge. But you can go through here and find a petition
00:08:13.580signing in your area. Now, if you do scroll through here, you'll see red pop up on occasion.
00:08:18.900There's one right there. This means there is a speaker at that event. There's more of them
00:08:23.000here, speaker at seven o'clock. So if you haven't been out to an event where there is a speaker,
00:08:27.480be sure to do that because they are great events. I cannot go through all of the different
00:08:32.340events that are happening around the province. There are so many. But I did want to put this scroll
00:08:36.620up on the screen. So here are a few of the events where they've created posters for them.
00:08:40.660And I want to thank Squid Took for sending in this song. The music you're hearing with this scroll
00:08:47.480is from Squid Took. And this is called Republic of Alberta.
00:08:50.880From the peace down to the half. Gold and wheat where the wind leans back. Snow on peaks, rigs on the plains. Friday lights on a hometown game. Pick up dust on a gravel road. Prairie sky.
00:09:20.860Doing what it's told. Painting red. Painting gold and blue. Feels like the flag already flew.
00:09:29.860Raise that maple colored sun on a brand new day that's just begun. Where the Rockies stand like guards at the western gate.
00:09:40.860Where the cattle roam and the cities grow. And every small town bar still glows. Republic of Alberta. We'll make our own fate.
00:09:54.680Thanks a lot to Squid Took for creating the song for me. I get a lot of AI generated songs about Alberta independence.
00:10:04.860I can't use them all. I'm sorry. And if you copyright the song, don't send it to me.
00:10:10.260Because it will demonetize my video. A lot of people come up to me when I'm out and they say,
00:10:15.120John, I need facts. I need figures. I need that information at my fingertips. Where do I get it?
00:10:20.760So each week I'm going to try to focus in on different places you can do that.
00:10:24.340Of course, you can go to X. Stay free. Alberta is on X. And they've got all kinds of information for you.
00:10:31.300But another great place and probably the best place to get facts and figures is Rise of Alberta.
00:10:37.680And everybody's following Rise of Alberta in the independence movement. Almost 79,000 followers right now.
00:10:43.700Rise of Alberta constantly creating little graphics like this that you can click on and get information that you really need at a moment's notice.
00:10:51.440And I actually created this. Let me get myself off the screen here.
00:10:54.820If you scan this with your camera, it will bring up a document with 20 points about Alberta independence.
00:11:01.140Lots of facts and figures there. I'll leave it on the screen for a moment so you can grab your phone.
00:11:06.960And now my favorite part of the independence calendar.
00:11:09.940The stuff that you sent me at johnboltonab at gmail.com.
00:15:48.340We had 1,500, 2,000 people show up outside wanting to sign the petition.
00:15:51.680I think the people who were there signing people up are still in the hospital with issues with carpal tunnel syndrome because it was just crazy.
00:16:04.340It's like, you know, we had people lined up out the door.
00:16:06.880And that poor woman was just signing or writing petitions out all night long.
00:16:11.060Her poor little hand must have been falling off by the end of the year.
00:16:13.640But, I mean, that's why we now have, you know, 10, 15, 20 canvassers at every event we do so that, you know, so that that doesn't happen.
00:16:22.700And the only reason that happened was because we didn't have, there were literally the only two badges in the entire province that had been issued the night of that Water Valley event.
00:18:03.380Jeff, you were, the second interview, I can't recall the name of the man you were talking to, but he did a really good job of talking to you.
00:18:10.520But you were incredibly effective in that second interview because you focused on the positive of this movement and why Alberta wants to leave.
00:18:19.140And when you were asked the reasons why, you, you gave really good, clear answers on it and they were really good, good interviews with you.
00:18:28.740Boy, have you ever had your face over social media over the last week over these things?
00:18:34.620A lot of people, not very complimentary of you as well.
00:18:36.840Yeah, well, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, I mean, I'm, and as you probably have guessed, I mean, you know, and you've observed, I mean, people either love me or they hate me.
00:18:49.040And obviously the issue, you know, not only can I be very polarizing, you know, individually, but the issue that we're dealing with is very polarizing.
00:19:11.380Like, you know, it's hard not to call David Eby an idiot when he calls you a, you know, treasonous or calls you a traitor.
00:19:18.620I mean, it's an idiotic statement, but there's better language.
00:19:21.380I mean, I could say it's childish or I could say that, you know, David Eby simply doesn't know what he's talking about and that he's inciting violence against myself and people in our movement.
00:19:31.120Because ever since, you know, he started with all that treason nonsense.
00:19:34.220I mean, the number of death threats that we've been receiving have been going up through the roof.
00:19:38.500You know, like getting emails about we're going to be hung like the Vichy French and we're going to be hung the way that they hung collaborators after World War II and all of this stuff.
00:19:47.240And David Eby is intentionally inciting that level of violence and then he doubles down on it.
00:19:55.980There is a, you know, we have the secession reference that says that what we're doing is lawful and constitutional.
00:20:02.680There's the, you know, Clarity Act that says what we're doing is lawful and constitutional.
00:20:06.300There is no law in Canada that says that free, you know, that, you know, Canadians can't use their mobility rights and freedom of speech to speak to whoever they want about, you know, whatever they want.
00:20:17.420And that includes the State Department, you know, of the U.S. government.
00:20:21.680I mean, you know, one of our supporters the other day posted on X the Canadian government had Bill Clinton come to Ottawa during the Quebec referendum to speak against the liberation of the province of Quebec.
00:20:33.740So if the Canadian government can, you know, interfere, you know, in a referendum process by bringing a U.S. president up to talk against independence, why can't members of a province, you know, or citizens of a province go to the United States to see whether to, you know, ascertain the level of support within the United States for Alberta independence?
00:20:57.420There's no law against it. It's not unconstitutional. It's not legal. It doesn't offend the criminal code.
00:21:03.180And of course, the people that are doing that are simply doing it to create a false narrative and to incite violence, you know, against myself and other members of our movement.
00:21:13.040And it's really sad and quite despicable that a provincial premier would do that.
00:21:17.480And you and you are a private citizen. You're not you're not elected to anything.
00:21:21.380So, you know, I mean, I have no obligation in that regard to answer any questions in the media if I choose not to. Right.
00:21:28.500So, you know, this is, you know, you know, but at the same at the same time, we want to talk to people and tell them what we're talking about and what we're doing and why we're doing it.
00:21:39.520Thanks to Jeff for being on the channel earlier this week. I hope you're feeling better, Jeff, and so many people who are the big names in the independence movement are so giving of their time.
00:21:49.340And I'll be featuring them here on the channel up until the time we have a referendum in the fall and probably after as well.
00:21:56.560Now, for those of you who are out there and want to contribute, some of you say, I can't really get involved in the independence movement.
00:22:02.360You are if you just sign the petition. Every little bit helps. But keep your submissions coming here to the independence calendar.
00:22:09.160Send your pictures, your videos, everything Alberta independence to johnboltonab at gmail.com.
00:22:14.740And for any other information you need, go to stayfreealberta.com.
00:22:19.440I appreciate you watching the independence calendar. If you can, share this, give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for notifications.
00:22:27.280I'll see you next week on the independence calendar.