The Warriors of Alberta Independence - We Salute You
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
185.93796
Summary
The Warriors of Alberta Independence are out in the streets of Calgary today collecting signatures on Alberta's independence petition. It's a beautiful day in Calgary, but it's not as sunny and warm as it was last night, and there's a lot of snow on the ground.
Transcript
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Calgary got hit with some pretty heavy snow last night.
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I wonder if any of those crazy but dedicated canvassers are out collecting signatures on petitions today.
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Just in my backyard about to head out and it's a beautiful day today.
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Lots of sunshine, minus 12 Celsius and you saw all the snow we got in Calgary.
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And I think I'll call this video the Warriors of Alberta Independence
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because they do have to come out at an extreme time of the year.
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I think back of the farce of the Thomas Lukasik Forever Canadian campaign, that petition campaign.
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He went through those people out in the middle of the summertime when it was nice and warm.
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The fact that Alberta taxpayers had to pay any dollars for that, it kind of makes me mad.
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So the people we're going to go out and visit today are out here day after day, week after week,
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collecting signatures on these petitions so that Alberta can gain its independence.
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Let's go check out some of the Warriors of Alberta Independence.
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These people are generally here on Saturdays and Sundays, I think from 12 till 4.
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And it's in the southeast, not too far from where I live.
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It's basically at the Dog Walk Park on 52nd Street, just south of Stoney Trail.
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You know, very often people say to me, thanks, John, for all that you do for the independence
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And I often say to them, I'm not really doing a hell of a lot.
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It's the people that are out there day after day after day collecting signatures.
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Now, I'm going to have a date coming up very soon, which I'm going to talk about on my
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But what I wanted to do before I went over to this signing location is I wanted to do something
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for these people because they're out there on days like today when it's cold, sunny, cold
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Could I get four large coffees black on a tray with cream and sugar on the side and four
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I'm doing a video for tomorrow called The Warriors of Alberta Independence.
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They said, I wonder how many people are going to be out after the snowfall.
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And I wanted to come by and drop off the coffee and the French fries to you.
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So I'm at the location right now at 52nd Street, right at the Dog Walk Park,
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just a little bit south of Stoney Trail on the west side here.
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Great location for a petition signing campaign.
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I'm here with Jerry Budsiak, who is one of the regional directors for this area.
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Jerry, just astounding that you're out here on a day like this.
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I'm calling you guys the Warriors of Independence today because, you know, we got all that snow here in Calgary last night.
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It's kind of a chilly day, although a beautiful sunny day today.
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My wife, Sharon, and I, we have kids, we have grandkids, and this isn't the same Canada we grew up in.
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And so what we see our opportunity is for Alberta to go out on its own.
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You know, I hear that a lot from people who are a little bit older, might have grandchildren.
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They say they're doing it for their grandkids because they want a better life for them.
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I was talking earlier from my house that the forever Canadian people had that beautiful sunny weather last summer.
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We've had to deal with inclement weather like this.
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People thank me for doing things for Alberta Independence.
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But it's people on the front line like you that are out here on a regular basis.
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You're out on the street waving around an Alberta flag to get people here.
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How is business when it comes to signing petitions here at this location?
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The appreciative horn toots probably outnumber the thumbs down ones probably 95 to 5.
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And one thing I would say is we've seen a change from the town halls.
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What's happened is we got a lot of young people here that show up and sign.
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But we do hear about the negative Nellies, the people who we've had a few people get abusive with, you know, the canvassers out there.
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We had one earlier on, but this is an official campaign sanctioned by Elections Alberta.
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The incident was reported, and I'm sure that individual will not show up again.
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We've had a number of people come by just while I've been here for the last 15, 20 minutes.
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And we're going to be here every Saturday from 12 to 5 and at least till the end of March.
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And again, thank you so much for everything you're doing for the independence movement.
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Can I get three medium coffees, black, please, with cream and sugar on the side with a tray and three double chocolate donuts?
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I'm doing a video called The Warriors of Independence.
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I was just over at the place at 52nd Street, the Dog Walk Park, just south of Stoney.
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They've had people in there today, and I just wanted to come around.
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I was thinking about this last night when we were getting that snow, you know?
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I wonder if people are going to come out on a day like today.
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So you were here during that real cold spell we had as well.
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And then everybody came after we took the tent out.
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So I'm at the location right here at 52nd Street, 130th Avenue at the Athletic Park.
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I'm here with Ari Moldvan, who is one of the canvassers here today.
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I thought I'd sign people up and get out here and sign people up at this amazing place.
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You've got a little fire here to keep yourself warm.
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A lot of positive, you know, waves and beeps as we go by and just really steady traffic of everybody coming by to sign here.
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Yeah, you know, I was here not too long ago and it's a good location here as well at this athletic park.
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Beautiful weather, although it is a little bit cold still.
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But you said you were really busy last weekend.
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Oh, especially as we were taking everything down.
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So when you were out last week, did you have your little fire here with you?
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And you've actually set up another location not too far from where I am.
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So maybe I'll drop by and see those guys who are just over behind Home Depot here.
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I mean, what's been going on in Ottawa and what happens in Alberta here, it's been like, I mean, it affects our prosperity.
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You go down, you see what's going on in the United States where they actually develop their energy and they develop their industry here.
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And, you know, it's just wrong the way that we get treated.
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I said, have you had any, I call them negative Nellies, you know, we've had some instances across the province with people coming up and being disruptive.
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A couple of people giving us a finger driving by, but I haven't had anyone yell at me.
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And at the other location, they said about 95% positive.
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You know, for somebody like myself, and I've talked to a lot of people my age, I'm 61 now.
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People say they're doing this for their grandchildren.
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How did you get involved in the independence movement?
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You mentioned that, you know, the way we're treated really from Ottawa, can't get our resources out of the ground and things like that.
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But do you notice a lot of other young people who feel the same way?
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I would say close to all of my friends feel the same way.
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And, you know, I made a choice to come out here.
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And I don't want to see, like, Alberta become, like, the rest of the Canada, really.
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Well, I moved out here from Ottawa or from Ontario about 15 years ago.
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I'm calling this the Warriors of Independence after that snowy night last night.
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I thought, would we have people out here doing this?
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And they're all across the province today as well in this cold weather.
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Thanks so much for all of your time and for helping out.
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Okay, so going into the third location here, not too far away from the last one.
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It's kind of in behind the Home Depot here on 130th Avenue.
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So we'll just go through the drive-thru and make it easy.
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Can I have three medium coffees, black, with cream and sugar on the side, and three large fries?
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I got the medium coffees because McDonald's coffees are so damn big.
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I was just over at the athletic park, and they said you guys are here.
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You're doing it right off of this little thing here.
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Well, I got some coffee for you if you want a coffee with cream and sugar,
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and I've got you some French fries from McDonald's.
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Well, so please, please come and get the fries.
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I just want to jump in here and apologize to Greg.
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I had an audio issue when I did this interview with him, but, you know, it was interesting.
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All three of the interviews I did, most of them were so positive, saying that, you know,
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95% of the people coming by had a positive reaction to their independence petition.
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But what's amazing about this one is these two guys set up on this utility box at the
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side of the road at this home depot down here in the southeast, just off 52nd Street.
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Really remarkable to think this is what people are doing across the province so Alberta can
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What an exhilarating experience visiting those three different petition signing places here
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You know what's amazing about it is all of those places were about 10 minutes from where
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So if you think about that from a provincial standpoint, we're doing pretty good if we've
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got petition places all over the province on a Saturday morning into a Saturday afternoon.
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Earlier today, I spoke with my friend Jeevan Mangad.
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He's one of the organizers of petition pop-ups here in Calgary.
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And he said a friend of his had one going on in the northwest today.
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I think he's at a farm market, a farmer's market rather, in the Bonass area.
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I'm here at the Calgary farmer's market just by Bonass.
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You can see already we've got a small lineup, four or five people gathering.
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And I thought I'd share with you why I stand up for independence for Alberta.
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As a small-town new fee, I moved to Calgary about 28 years ago looking for a better life.
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And now, from what I've seen, I've barely even worked in.
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I've worked four years out of the past 11 years here in Alberta.
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And Canada's basically having to go on at a business sale.
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And I have a 21-year-old son that can't find work.
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From 1.30 to 4.30 here at the Calgary Farmer's Market.
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I appreciate it going above and beyond the call of duty and working hard for the independence
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movement in the Northwest, about as far away as you can get from where I'm standing as well.
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And for those of you who haven't signed the petition yet or think your signature really
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won't make a difference, you need to sign the petition.
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If you can't make it out to a petition signing location, you can do that.
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If you're driving around, you're going to probably come across somebody standing on a
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And pretty close by, you'll find a petition that you can sign.