John Bolton - The Independence Petition - The Story Of The Most Unlikely Location

00:00:00.000 in just a moment we're going to have a special guest here and this is

00:00:06.620 this is a fun one i have to say you know we're at the final weekend of the petition signing and god

00:00:13.680 love all of the canvassers that have been out there for the last four months through some

00:00:18.520 pretty nasty weather and you know i do the independence calendar on sundays i've done it

00:00:23.300 for this is the 21st week in a row and i've received some amazing pictures i remember when

00:00:28.740 everybody was fascinated when we saw people down in Yuma, Arizona. And then we started seeing

00:00:33.620 people in California and everybody was amazed. We've seen pictures of people on mountaintops

00:00:38.660 signing the petition. There's a helicopter in the background in this picture you're looking at right

00:00:43.160 now. But I have to say, and I bet you most people would say they never thought they would see

00:00:49.280 something like this we never thought we would see the alberta flag in egypt at the pyramids and

00:01:01.520 the man you see on the screen right now is the guy signing the petition and there's the shirt

00:01:07.320 i'd like to welcome mike schnell mike thank you so much for talking to me today i appreciate it

00:01:12.900 it's good to see you great to be here thanks for having me john you know we get we get a real

00:01:17.940 thrill out of this one. I've had people comment on this. Can you imagine that there's the Alberta

00:01:22.560 flag in Egypt, and there's a pyramid in behind, and there's you signing this petition. How did

00:01:27.960 this all come about? Tell me what your thought process was, obviously leaving Alberta to go to

00:01:33.520 Egypt. So we had some friends that moved in down the street from us here. I live in Cougar Ridge

00:01:39.280 in Calgary, and they had moved here from Egypt, and they just had little kids, and so we took

00:01:46.280 over a plate of cookies you know welcome wagon thing and and uh welcome to the neighborhood and

00:01:50.760 we became pretty good friends in fact uh my wife taught their children a boy and a girl

00:01:55.960 they were just little at the time taught them piano for a few years and uh you know we got

00:02:00.360 invited to their graduations and so on and and uh we weren't close close friends but you know

00:02:06.520 good enough friends right sure and uh they regarded us as their best friends in canada and

00:02:11.800 that's great. And anyway, back in, oh shucks, December, January, we get this phone call from

00:02:19.460 them and they say, hey, our son's getting married in Egypt. Would you like to come to Egypt for the

00:02:23.640 wedding? And I mean, I'll be honest with you, Egypt wasn't really on my bucket list. And I

00:02:30.940 thought, yeah, why not? In our church, we're studying the Old Testament. So of course, you've

00:02:36.000 got Egypt is a big part of the Old Testament. So I thought, well, why wouldn't we want to go to

00:02:42.540 Egypt? So let's go. So we made all the arrangements and showed up there for the wedding. And along

00:02:49.760 the way, I was scheming and dreaming in my back of my mind. And I thought, well, I'm going to take

00:02:54.480 an Alberta flag and I'm going to take a couple of pages from my canvasser book and my little badge.

00:03:00.960 and uh because i can throw that all in a backpack pretty easy and anyway we the day came we went to

00:03:07.260 the the uh pyramids and uh i said okay there this is it this is this is where we're doing this

00:03:15.300 and i uh i got my wife and another young girl uh to you know hold the hold the alberta flag up

00:03:22.940 behind me and and i signed the petition and and i got five signatures on that petition

00:03:28.840 from alberta if you can imagine so it worked out really well and then our guide said whoa whoa whoa

00:03:35.480 you got to take that down they said they don't like anybody uh using the pyramids for any kind

00:03:40.600 of promotion for anything doesn't matter if it's political or sports team or anything you can't do

00:03:46.380 that and so the flag was probably only flying for about a minute and a half and we folded it up and

00:03:52.760 put it away that's amazing it's just amazing picture uh just looking at it right now put it

00:03:58.860 up on the screen again so people can see it and there you are wearing the exact shirt that now

00:04:03.860 are you a canadian citizen are you an alberta citizen are you old enough to vote i'm just

00:04:08.320 wondering mike you got that information right while you were there 100 yeah 100 i got that i

00:04:14.840 got their driver's licenses i got all the all the proper stuff i'm a proper canvasser i've got over

00:04:20.280 hundred signatures good for you that I personally uh uh signed up and then uh and then I'm with a

00:04:27.640 small team uh about six or seven of us and we've got about another eight or nine hundred signatures

00:04:32.980 on our little team so well done to you now I want to ask you this um you took this became

00:04:38.820 kind of a phenomenon here in Alberta I remember seeing this and it was sent in to me by Terry I

00:04:45.040 believe he had this picture and he sent it to me and I remember putting it on the calendar and just

00:04:50.340 thinking this was unbelievable and then there was a lot of buzz about this one people would talk to

00:04:55.880 me about this did you hear about it uh becoming kind of a phenomenon in Alberta it was kind of

00:05:01.360 funny because there was a few people that approached me and said hey we saw you and uh anyway

00:05:06.540 I you know I watched it two or three times on Facebook and wherever and and then I saw the

00:05:11.440 video that you and uh jeff roth did and and jeff was just giggling away on that one he says man he

00:05:17.720 says i want to meet that guy and shake his hand well you got to go out and meet jeff he's a great

00:05:22.380 guy go out and meet him wear the shirt you know you know what you should do is you should get it

00:05:27.020 framed to put it up on your wall because i think it's just terrific now uh well done and it's really

00:05:31.540 nice to talk to you hope to meet you as well um i'm just wondering how do you think things are

00:05:35.800 going now we've got the final weekend we're in the final weekend right now of the petition campaign

00:05:40.520 you've been you've been doing this yourself with over 100 signatures nobody can say they got five

00:05:44.520 from egypt but how do you think things are going right now well i think things are going pretty

00:05:49.960 well i don't know that we're uh i don't know i mean we've got a kind of a internal goal to get

00:05:56.760 a million or a million and a half signatures i don't know if we'll get that i don't even i don't

00:06:01.080 know if we'll get that all the way there but i'll i will say this uh this is my own personal

00:06:06.520 observation i've done lots of flag waving standing on the sidewalk waving flags and you know i got a

00:06:12.280 small team behind me uh that are uh got the desk set up and they're signing people up and uh you

00:06:19.160 know i'll say this my own personal poll says i we get one finger wagger you know what i mean by that

00:06:29.080 and 10 thumbs up horn honkers right yes and uh it's it's a 10 to one and that's consistent

00:06:35.880 Every time I go out, everywhere I go, and most everybody I talk to is getting a very similar reaction.

00:06:42.160 Yeah, I was out, I think a week and a half ago, riding my bike.

00:06:45.780 I found some canvassers sitting at the side of Acadia Drive, and they said the same thing to me.

00:06:51.280 And let me just say this to you, and I'll ask you this, but I'm sure you're going to say the same thing.

00:06:55.420 I have met some of the nicest people and made some friends during this that I don't think I'd have ever made before.

00:07:01.720 Do you feel the same way?

00:07:02.520 hundred percent you know what i've met a whole new people a whole new raft of people that i

00:07:07.780 never previously knew at all and i want to say this of all the different when i first stood in

00:07:13.080 that lineup that first calgary uh petition signing event that you set up over there in the southeast

00:07:18.960 you know queensland you were there queensland that's it yeah i was over there at that and and

00:07:24.560 i'm driving over there and i'm thinking why the heck is all this traffic coming because it was

00:07:30.280 it was always right in front of me you know like everybody's turning left here and everybody's

00:07:34.880 turning left there and everybody's going up the same street then it dawned on me oh my goodness

00:07:39.080 these are people are all heading for this petition signing right yeah and so we couldn't park in that

00:07:43.860 community parking lot it was jam-packed so we went a couple blocks away and just parked in a

00:07:49.400 residential and so was there a bunch of other people doing the same thing and so as I'm walking

00:07:54.960 towards the community hall as i'm standing in the lineup waiting to be able to sign the petition

00:08:00.500 and i believe that was the first one in calgary if i'm not mistaken yeah and uh uh you know what

00:08:07.080 i'll say this every single person in that line was ordinary average every day go to work alberta

00:08:15.800 people they're family men they've got jobs to go to they've got mortgages to pay they've got

00:08:22.560 kids to raise they got hockey games to attend and soccer games to attend and all that same stuff

00:08:28.620 right these are not radical people as much as anybody wants to label us some kind of traitors

00:08:34.640 or rabble rousers or whatever no siri but these are ordinary average everyday albertans that are

00:08:42.180 calm quiet and confident that we're going to change this system it sucks and we're going to 0.93

00:08:50.360 change it. Mike, you said it so well. And you know, it's funny, I remember that night, Heather 0.95

00:08:55.480 Field and Jeevan Mangat were really responsible for putting that night together on January the

00:09:01.440 10th. And I remember people asking me because I was the emcee that night. Dennis Kalman was there,

00:09:07.520 Eva Chipiak, Corey Morgan spoke, they were fantastic. And I remember people getting in

00:09:11.860 touch with me saying, will there be canvassers there? Because it was only a few days after

00:09:15.380 this all started up and very few people had the badges and they broke their arms off that night

00:09:20.500 we had more than a thousand people in line that night and it was crazy so it was a fun night and

00:09:25.480 then we started seeing that everywhere and it happened already across the province well first

00:09:29.240 off thank you very much for doing what you've done getting getting signatures working with

00:09:33.100 the group that you've been working with people say to me john thanks for all you do i i do a little

00:09:39.020 bit you've done a bit too mike everybody's done their bit right it becomes a big thing right and

00:09:44.660 You know what? You know what, John? We're just ordinary, average, everyday people. None of us

00:09:49.640 are brilliant. None of us are connected. None of us have special status in the community.

00:09:56.060 We're just ordinary, average, everyday people. Well, we like to call it grassroots, you know,

00:10:01.440 and that's what this whole movement's been about. And you know what, Mike? We've been part of

00:10:05.340 something that's pretty historic here. This has really never been done before. And I appreciate

00:10:10.120 it. We'll put the picture up at the end again, because it's worth seeing again. But this was

00:10:14.160 one of the highlight moments, I think, of this petition campaign.

00:10:18.280 Everybody loved this.

00:10:20.220 And you know what?

00:10:20.980 I think this inspired people.

00:10:22.920 I think people saw this and said, if somebody could go to Egypt and

00:10:26.300 sign the petition, I can too.

00:10:28.160 So thank you so much, sir.

00:10:29.820 And thank your wife and happy birthday.

00:10:32.260 Your turn.

00:10:32.640 Well, thank you. 0.98

00:10:33.660 You look great for 70 and that's a damn good looking shirt you're wearing, Mike. 0.94

00:10:39.840 All the best to you. 0.96

00:10:41.520 Okay.

00:10:41.980 Thanks, John.

00:10:42.780 Mike Schnell, we appreciate him being here on the channel and the independence calendar.

John Bolton - April 24, 2026

The Independence Petition - The Story Of The Most Unlikely Location

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