John Bolton - August 14, 2026


North Alberta Strong Needs Help to Spread The Independence Message


Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

207.58

Word count

2,306

Sentence count

89


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel. Great to have you along today. Thank you so much for
00:00:07.680 being part of this channel. I do appreciate it and got a guest with us today. You know, it's been
00:00:13.640 pretty exciting over the last several months since we started the referendum campaign. A lot
00:00:18.760 of different groups getting involved to try to help out with the independence movement. They're
00:00:22.940 called third party advertisers. They might be referred to as a TPA in this interview moving
00:00:27.680 forward just to make it easy for you. And I've got another third-party advertiser with us right
00:00:32.460 now. I'd like to welcome volunteer spokesperson for North Alberta Strong, Daryl Prew. Daryl,
00:00:38.040 great to have you here. Thank you so much. And thanks very much for being part of a TPA
00:00:42.860 during the referendum campaign. Yes, thank you very much for having me on, John. I'm
00:00:48.360 excited to talk to you about our third-party advertiser today.
00:00:51.500 You know, it's been quite an exciting time. As I said, we've got a number of them out there
00:00:56.560 right now and doing great work. I think when I was asked to do this interview by, I think it was
00:01:04.360 Sharon, I believe it was Sharon. Sharon knew that. Yeah. Sharon, Sharon said you're the,
00:01:09.320 the furthest North pretty much as you can get when it comes to a third party advertiser.
00:01:15.340 Sharon said she was in Fairview, which is about an eight and a half hour drive from where I'm
00:01:19.040 sitting here in Calgary. Where are you located today, Daryl? I'm, I'm in the town of Peace
00:01:22.940 river um i i want to tell you there uh there's a there's a couple of really passionate uh
00:01:29.340 supporters here in the north that have uh been featured on your channel before they've gone as
00:01:34.500 far as zama city to collect signatures during the uh independence uh referendum uh petition that we
00:01:40.780 did right so we've got a lot of ground to cover up here and uh it's a good thing we've got some
00:01:45.400 people that aren't afraid of driving yeah yeah i got pictures i'll put the picture up on the screen
00:01:50.220 from Zama City, which was just amazing. I think that was the farthest north. We had a signature
00:01:54.400 signing place. They had one of the State Free Alberta sitting outside. My friend Lyle DeParon
00:01:59.900 is up in Fort Vermillion, and he was in my house so about three weeks ago. He came all the way down
00:02:04.900 here to pick up some signs from Corey Morgan. I think I got him some other signs from some other
00:02:09.660 TPAs at that point as well. But yeah, you've got a large area to cover up there, but you've got a
00:02:14.260 really motivated volunteer base with North Alberta Strong, don't you? We do. Before we started our
00:02:22.700 third-party advertiser here, there was a big push to get the other TPAs signs up here. And like you
00:02:31.620 talked about, you know, Fairview being eight and a half hours. Well, eight and a half hours from
00:02:36.180 where you live right now. Well, high level, the Crete Fort Vermillion is probably more like 12
00:02:41.020 hours from where you're at and uh we've got some dedicated people like those folks that went to
00:02:46.420 zama city right they uh drove all the way down south picked up other tpas lawn signs made sure
00:02:53.120 that they made their way up into the north so that we could have a presence for our side in the
00:02:57.340 referendum here so and then after that it just transformed into like well we might as well just
00:03:03.240 start our own third-party advertiser then and we'll make it north specific we'll fundraise for
00:03:08.320 the north we will focus on advertising in the north like we have a huge land mass here um my
00:03:14.720 riding the peace river constituency alone is 12 of the land mass of alberta right and that's not
00:03:21.760 including the grand prairie area that's not including central peace notley etc anyway i'm
00:03:27.220 belaboring the point but no no i get it no i get it and you should you know it's funny when i talk
00:03:33.260 about the north i talk about edmonton edmonton's kind of central you guys are north
00:03:38.140 it's just crazy how much space is up there and you know i want people to go to your website you're
00:03:43.700 looking we're trying to help people um with donations we did the telethon a few weeks back
00:03:49.260 people are trying to connect collect money so they can put up signs and banners we'll tell people how
00:03:53.220 they can do that in the north as well with north alberta strong your website is north albertastrong.ca
00:03:58.900 you've got a donate button there so if you would like to make a donation to these people if you're
00:04:03.340 in the south help them out give them a little bit of a boost right now if you if you can do it
00:04:08.280 click on the button and send us some money right now so that they can put up signs and banners and
00:04:12.660 you are doing that as well I've noticed I've seen some of the banners you've got they're pretty
00:04:15.940 uh pretty amazing what you're doing up that way and are you just are you trying to line the roads
00:04:20.500 with these I mean there's a lot of space up there um to get the message out well as as many highways
00:04:26.380 as we can line is is uh the way to go yeah you know we're not saying no to anybody that wants
00:04:31.540 to request a lawn sign but yeah there's definitely a focus there where if there's anybody that owns
00:04:35.900 some highway side property that's going to see a lot of traffic 100 you know we've got some strong
00:04:41.820 supporters i would even mention in the berwin area before any of these tpas even started right they
00:04:47.560 were stacking hay bales along the road and strapping alberta flags to them right yeah and
00:04:52.220 unfortunately the alberta flag has become a bit of a polarizing symbol but also it gets the gets
00:04:57.520 the message out right for for our side right anyone that's not afraid of that alberta flag
00:05:02.060 knows what it means right now it means you know we support alberta first right yeah you bet you
00:05:08.200 you bet you know that's great and you can go to the website as well there's a request a banner
00:05:12.780 and a request a sign um place there as well and you can sign up for a newsletter to get more
00:05:17.580 information and events and activities are you trying to educate people as well daryl is that
00:05:21.920 part of your plan up in the north you know there isn't a lot up that way um and i and i don't mean
00:05:28.540 to be disrespectful there's a lot of space up there but you are trying to get the word out
00:05:32.520 aren't you a hundred percent and yeah that's one thing there you know we had the federal election
00:05:38.240 in uh 2025 and then from there you know we had really like 14 months of events of like town hall
00:05:45.180 style events and that was with not us right but i'm just saying in general in the movement right
00:05:51.060 And so what we've kind of seen now is anyone that's kind of wanted to go to a town hall event, they've had their opportunity to and they've gone.
00:05:59.140 So what this is kind of morphed into now is more smaller group conversations.
00:06:03.560 You know, if somebody wants to go for coffee or they want to have somebody over at their house to have a conversation.
00:06:10.220 We've had other volunteers, not necessarily associated with the TPA, but just up here in the north that have gone to, you know, local rodeos and mud bogs and stuff like that.
00:06:20.940 just to hand out the information and the response has been really positive it's that that's that's
00:06:27.160 been really effective now um is just just talking with people in smaller groups and handing out
00:06:31.880 information so yeah we definitely want to educate as well we want people to understand
00:06:36.560 we know we're we're we're supporting vote yes on the first nine questions and then option two on
00:06:42.460 question 10 and um and and making sure that we do get the word out absolutely yeah i know i was down
00:06:48.980 in Cardston, a long way away from you with Angela Tabak, the Alberta Women for Independence. They're
00:06:55.340 doing that as well, educating people about those first nine questions, because, you know, if you
00:06:59.640 walked in and saw those on a ballot, as they say, if you walked in and saw those on a ballot, you'd
00:07:03.840 be perplexed. It would take you an hour just to get through those first nine questions. So, you
00:07:07.940 know, vote yes on the first nine, option two on question 10, for sure. I think that's really
00:07:12.040 important. What's the feel up your way? You're, for the most part, a rural area. We know that
00:07:17.920 there's a lot of support for independence in rural areas. A lot of people are trying to focus
00:07:21.860 on Edmonton and Calgary, but what's the feel in your area when it comes to the independence movement?
00:07:26.600 Well, I would, you know, it's, it's funny when people ask me about that. Like I live right in
00:07:31.600 the town of Peace River and I'm very biased. You know, I feel I live in a very beautiful place in
00:07:37.440 the world. Our town specifically, it seems fairly divided. You know, it's a bit of a hub, a bit of a
00:07:43.880 government town you know so you sort of you know people's political persuasions seem to divide
00:07:50.160 along you know like we've got the oil and gas around here lots of people very blue collar on
00:07:54.160 that and then there's the government workers right health care uh the judiciary whatever there they
00:08:00.200 tend to vote in other ways so so our town is kind of uh it's split but you know you get into the
00:08:07.880 smaller more rural communities where where sharon is in fairview oh very strong support there uh
00:08:13.860 You know, places like Manning and Fort Vermilion and La Crete, way up north there, seeming pretty strong support for Alberta Independence.
00:08:24.720 Views, the town of Grimshaw, just down the road from May there, we've got strong support there.
00:08:29.620 So, you know, the vibes are good.
00:08:31.600 I see lots of signs along the highway, which is really good.
00:08:34.800 And, yeah, I'm feeling good about it.
00:08:38.680 Yeah, that's good.
00:08:39.300 And it's interesting, you know, you talk about the workers, the people who are doing the jobs,
00:08:43.000 the oil and gas and whatnot. They'd like to see a change. They see what's happened over the last
00:08:47.860 10 years. And going back 40 years, a lot of people still talk about the national energy program. And
00:08:52.560 then the government, they want the status quo because they're on the gravy train, right? So
00:08:56.900 yeah, I'm glad you're up there doing the work you're doing. And again, we want to send people
00:09:00.960 to your website. If you'd like to support NorthAlbertaStrong.ca is the website. Request a
00:09:07.280 sign request a banner volunteer as well you're still looking for people you got a lot of space
00:09:11.080 up there as you mentioned obviously it's hard for a few people to get a lot of a lot of things
00:09:16.760 done but if you got a lot of people it kind of spreads out the work absolutely yeah anybody that
00:09:22.600 wants to help out we're not turning anyone away uh please volunteer uh if people are willing to
00:09:28.640 donate right any any dollar amount where we're accepting uh with within the cap right we're not
00:09:33.640 expecting everybody to come and give us five thousand dollars but you know if someone can
00:09:37.140 give us five ten bucks right it goes a long way so yeah every any way that someone wants to help
00:09:43.540 their money or their time we're uh we're on board for all of that and yes we do have
00:09:49.020 long distances to drive so that's another thing where if we the more volunteers we can get
00:09:54.520 you know the better because then we don't have people having to drive these long distances right
00:09:59.140 They can kind of focus in their specific communities, right?
00:10:03.260 Right, right.
00:10:04.020 No, good for you.
00:10:05.920 NorthAlbertaStrong.ca.
00:10:07.520 Good luck to you there.
00:10:08.780 I hope this helps a little bit.
00:10:10.500 If you're down in the South, you know, we need to do this across the province.
00:10:13.900 We need to spread the word.
00:10:14.940 The votes in the North are as important as the ones in the central part of the province
00:10:18.580 and in the South as well.
00:10:20.200 So if you can help out with a donation or you want to help volunteering or get a sign
00:10:24.400 or a banner, get in touch with you guys.
00:10:26.140 Darrell, thanks so much for doing this.
00:10:27.880 Thanks to all your volunteers up there.
00:10:29.900 You know, I haven't been up in your area.
00:10:32.060 It is a long drive, I mean, to get up there.
00:10:35.100 But I hope to get up there soon to see what it's like.
00:10:37.580 I appreciate all the work you're doing.
00:10:38.980 Thanks so much.
00:10:40.300 Yeah, yeah, you appreciate it.
00:10:41.580 I just want to say, I've got a sister that lives in Calgary there.
00:10:45.240 And I always remember about the highway north being twice as long as the highway south.
00:10:49.580 So one day you'll have to make that drive and see for yourself it's not that way.
00:10:54.740 I'd love to see it.
00:10:56.260 Thanks so much.
00:10:56.660 Daryl Prew, volunteer spokesperson, North Alberta Strong. If you liked this video,
00:11:01.540 give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for notifications. I'll see you
00:11:05.440 in the next one.