00:00:18.740And this one might be a little bit different than normal.
00:00:22.080As you know, the petition signing ended last weekend.
00:00:25.640So I received a lot of email from you this week, but not a lot of pictures.
00:00:29.760A lot of you sending well wishes. I did a video the other day just about calling it quits. I
00:00:35.760appreciate all your kind thoughts on that. But what I really want to focus on today is the good
00:00:41.400times we've had over the last four months and the event that is happening tomorrow. And here it is
00:00:46.120right here. Tomorrow is May 4th, Monday, May 4th, and Elections Alberta is the place where we will
00:00:52.420be gathering as Mitch Sylvester and Stay Free Alberta drop off the signatures at Unit 100-11510
00:01:01.960Kingsway Northwest in Edmonton. Now, there are a group of people leaving from different places.
00:01:07.660They're leaving Bonneville, where Mitch is from. Sylvester Sports at 930 if you're in the Calgary
00:01:12.740area. 730 at the iFly. Now, this is at Deerfoot City, 64th Avenue Deerfoot Trail in the Northeast.
00:01:20.740They're leaving the Sports Hall of Fame in Red Deer at 9 o'clock and from Gibbons gathering at 50th Avenue, Highway 28 at 11 o'clock to usher in the people from Bonneville to Cruz to Elections Canada.
00:01:32.840I am going to be there. I'm excited about being there.
00:02:03.000But if you've watched the Independence Calendar over the last 21 weeks,
00:02:06.460you've noticed I've had an interview at the end with somebody I spoke to the week before.
00:02:10.620I'm going to go back 11 months for this one
00:02:12.700to the very first time I spoke with Mitch Sylvester on this channel back on June 14th,
00:02:17.7602025. It's interesting what we talked about. And, you know, it's the same message that we
00:02:23.980have today that we had back then. So I'm going to have a little bit of that interview for you.
00:02:28.360More than 18,000, I think, have watched it so far. I'll put a card at the end so you can watch that.
00:02:33.620And on the calendar, one of the highlights over the last 21 weeks has been the pictures that you
00:02:38.620have sent me about the independence movement. You've been sending me information at johnboltonab
00:02:43.600at gmail.com for the last 21 weeks. And naturally this last week, I haven't received a lot of
00:02:50.400pictures because the signature campaign is over. So what I did was I went into my files. I kept
00:02:56.960them all folks. And I received videos and pictures and pictures of flags and pictures of cars with
00:03:02.980flags. But I went back to try to find every picture I received with somebody at a petition
00:03:09.100signing with a flag standing there with an elections, you know, sign here, sign. I've got
00:03:14.280all those. I'm going to go through all of them. I think I found 71 or 72 of them. I'm going to
00:03:19.660feature them today. Now, unlike other weeks, I would do a narration over them. I'm not going to
00:03:25.420do that this time because it would be too hard to find out all the names for 71 different pictures
00:03:30.480and where they are. So I'm going to show you those today as well. So that's coming up on the
00:03:34.940independence calendar today. You know what? Why don't we do that right now? Thank you so much for
00:03:40.600sending me all these great pictures of canvassers over the last 21 weeks. And I'm just going to tell
00:03:46.680you this, keep this in mind, keep it in the back of your head. These pictures are going to be seen
00:03:52.400somewhere else over the next 24 to 48 hours. Keep that in mind.
00:03:57.420You stood on those stone cold govern steps, faith and freedom, loud and clear, folding chairs and town hall stages, spoke the truth they came to hear.
00:04:18.740They stood in line for hours, braved the cold and wind
00:04:24.100You talked about their children and the mess we're living in
00:04:29.420From the back row of the hall to the front row of the fight
00:04:34.680You said if they're gonna hear us, it's gonna be tonight
00:07:30.960Thanks again for all the terrific pictures over the last 21 weeks.
00:07:36.300And as we move forward with the independence calendar,
00:07:38.500it might change a little bit. I might take a week off to kind of rework it. Maybe I'll do that next
00:07:44.740week, but we're going to do some different things as we move along in the next part of the campaign
00:07:49.640to get Alberta independence. But thanks again for all the pictures. And if you've got anything
00:07:53.380you want to send me, love to see it. Just send it to me at johnboltonab at gmail.com. Now let's go
00:08:02.000back almost a year. In fact, it's about 11 months when I first spoke with Mitch Sylvester. Most of
00:08:08.560us didn't know Mitch's name at this time last year. We certainly got to know it over the last
00:08:13.30011 months. I talked to Mitch about the independence campaign. A lot has changed, but a lot of it is
00:08:19.620the same. So here's a short segment of that interview with Mitch at this time, or in June
00:08:24.540last year. Are you optimistic? How are you feeling about it right now? Well, I am very optimistic.
00:08:29.760Actually, I'm surprised by the continuing response we're getting.
00:08:34.780And the other thing that I'm very surprised about that makes me feel optimism as well is that the fact that 50 to 60 percent of the people in the room have never been to a political meeting before.
00:08:45.360And the other thing I'm seeing is young moms with babies and young people.
00:08:50.120You know, traditionally, our political meetings were people over 45, even over 55.
00:08:55.640And now we're seeing a lot of 20 to 40-year-olds attending these meetings and very much in support.
00:09:01.580So that all by itself makes me optimistic about this.
00:09:08.580And we don't believe for one second that it's even partisan.
00:09:11.600We think that once people understand the numbers that, you know, both sides of the aisle are going to be very happy with the results of a yes vote and an Alberta referendum for independence.
00:09:21.400You know, I've watched a few videos of you.
00:09:23.520you describe Alberta as the richest real estate in the world. Financially, what would independence
00:09:29.260mean to a typical Albertan, an average Albertan out there? Well, it's funny that you should
00:09:35.180mention that. We're just publishing a business plan and we're going to probably have a press
00:09:38.280conference next week about it. And it's very clear. What does it mean to the average Albertan?
00:09:42.980It will probably be, I would suggest that the average Albertan can look for an immediate 20
00:09:48.400to 25% increase in pay based on not having to pay federal tax. So say you're earning $70,000
00:09:55.600a year, you know, you can be looking for $17,000 more disposable income based on the fact that we
00:10:02.380don't have to pay all of these ridiculous taxes that we're being charged. You don't have to
00:10:07.680convince me, Mitch. You know, I'm ready to sign. I'm ready to go. I really am. But what do you say
00:10:13.140to people who are sort of sitting on the fence? I saw an article, Rick Bell wrote about it today
00:10:17.380in the Calgary Sun. 58% of UCP voters in the province would vote to leave right now. 11% of
00:10:23.660them are unsure. So, I mean, they had almost a million people vote for the UCP. That means,
00:10:28.440you know, upwards of 500 to 600,000 people would vote right now to go. What do you say to people
00:10:32.680who are kind of sitting on the fence? Maybe that 11% I mentioned. I think that once they understand
00:10:37.860the numbers, I don't think they'll be sitting on the fence anymore. And the other thing that
00:10:40.560they have to understand is this. We have a dysfunctional relationship with the federal
00:10:44.440Government of Canada. And I mean, it's become clearer and clearer and clearer the further down
00:10:49.960the road we go. Like they're literally sabotaging our industry. They're literally attacking our
00:10:55.300people. They're literally overtaxing us. This is all conscious. And we make it very clear in each
00:11:00.520of our presentations that this is actually what happens. This is not my words. These are the words
00:11:04.600that we see coming from the Premier of Alberta all the time. She literally said that they're
00:11:08.340sabotaging our industry. And we see it every day living where I live. I live in Bonneville, Alberta.
00:11:13.820So Bonneville produces 35% of Alberta's oil.
00:11:17.700And so we understand that every time that there's an attack on the oil patch, that we feel it directly.
00:11:24.420And, you know, I mean, the stats are showing that they continue to go down the road of the carbon cap.
00:11:30.600And, you know, there's stats that are saying that we'll lose 54,000 jobs as a consequence to that.
00:11:36.280Now, nowhere else in Canada is any of this happening.
00:11:39.320Like nowhere else in Canada, they're attacking industry.
00:11:41.520Nowhere else in Canada would even dream of a talking industry, but it seems to be something that's been going on here for literally 120 years.
00:11:49.220Thanks a lot to Mitch for being on the channel so many times over the last 11 months.
00:11:53.980And we'll be sure to have him on again real soon to talk about the next process when it comes to getting to Alberta independence.
00:12:00.700Tomorrow, actually, is the end of the first part of the independence movement, which was the signature campaign.
00:12:07.900And we're going to be in Edmonton tomorrow.