This Saturday... Let's Roll for INDEPENDENCE- With Mr & Mrs Al Bertan
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Summary
Al and Vicki Burton join me to talk about the petition and how things are going so far. We also talk about a new record for the number of canvassers that have signed the petition so far!
Transcript
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Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel. Great to have you along today. Recording this on
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Wednesday. We're going to put this up on Thursday. We've got an event coming up on the weekend we
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want to tell you about in just a moment here with the big blue mug of coffee. Of course,
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let me get it over here so you can see it. And we got my guests have their mugs as well. Thanks a
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lot for that. And we do have an event coming up on Saturday, but I want to talk a little bit about
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the independence movement and how things are going with the petition campaign. These are
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people I bump into all the time when I'm out at events. I was out at the big four and bump into
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these people. They're always out doing things with Alberta independence. I want to say hi to Al
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Burton and his wife, Vicki, Mr. and Mrs. Al. Good to have you here. Thanks for being on the channel.
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So good to talk to you. Thanks for having us, John. You know, I thought I might want to pull
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out my hat today. How does this look, by the way? I always think I look terrible. It's not the
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greatest hat, but how do I look in a cowboy hat? What do you think? It's awesome. You think that's
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pretty good? Yeah. Okay. I'll go with it. I'll go with it. I'll take your word for it. Okay. So I
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got the hat on today and it's good to talk to you, both of you. Thanks so much. It is really good to
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see you. Do you live in the Calgary area? We do live in the area. Yep. Grew up in Central Alberta.
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Okay. And you're in your lifetime Albertans, are you? Oh, yes. You are. Okay. Good stuff. So
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let me ask. It imploded on itself. Oh, is that right? Okay. So let me ask you this. Before we
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get to the event that's coming up on Saturday, you'd like people to take part in and it's going
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to be a fun thing for sure. Tell me, how do you think things are going so far when it comes to the
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petition signing and the independence movement right now, since we heard about the petition back
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on January the 2nd? It's been absolutely amazing. Yesterday, they broke the news that we've had
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7,500 canvassers sign up, which is a new record. The previous record was supposed to be around 5,000,
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somewhere in there. The signatures that we're still getting, we had a couple of guys that we've been
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working with that have come from out of country. And even yet, even on that day when it was blistery
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day and cold and everything, we worked up for two hours, we got 32 signatures in those two hours. It
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was amazing. Good stuff. Yeah. You know, and, and what people need to understand is this, and you're
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starting to see people try to belittle the petition signing campaign. When we first started doing this in
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January, you got all the motivated people to come out. Now we've got to get those people who are
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shut-ins, can't get out to sign the petition. And when you have these 7,500 people across the
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province, you're going to have two or three, 10, 20 people at a time signing the petitions, as opposed
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to the hundreds and thousands that we saw in early January and through most of January. That's what we
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have to understand, I think, right? Exactly. Yes. We're not going to see those big lineups anymore
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because we have enough people to take care of it quickly. And just like when we were at the big four,
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there was enough canvassers there that we could take them as they came in. So now that we're
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getting the record numbers of canvassers out there, we will have no problem getting to the people that
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need to have us come to them for the people, like you say, that are shut in or they, they are immobile.
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We can always, they just got to go to statefree.com and put in there that I would like to sign and
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it'll, we'll get to them. Yeah. Stayfreealberto.com. There's actually a button there you can click on.
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They will come to you so you can sign the petition. Vicki, I'm wondering how are you feeling
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about this? And let me ask you, why, why are you so involved in this? Why am I so involved?
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Yeah. Well, what brought me out of the woods was the ostriches. That's what brought me out of the
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wood. Really? Yeah. I lost a lot of faith in humanity that was those truth through that whole
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massacre. I'm going to, I'm going to lose my hat. Cause I keep losing my hat. If you notice,
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I keep kind of, kind of disappear. So I'll move over here. I kind of like you better without the
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happy sound. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. You were just being nice earlier when I asked about the hat
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and how it looked. I know, I know. So it was the ostriches that did that. You know, it's funny.
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I talked to Mitch Sylvester on the channel a couple of times and you know, he, he really got turned,
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turned over to the independence movement after the election back in late April last year. It's hard to
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believe it was just that late, but then the ostriches were even after that. So it's amazing how people
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can come over to independence and are you, are you gaining in your support for independence? The more
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you hear about it, you know, you hear about the money that's involved in natural resources and all
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the reasons why people want independence in Alberta, Viggy. Um, I, I, I honestly think it's just speaking
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their language to them because so many people are coming out of the woodwork. Um,
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um, uh, being out on the street and seeing, we're getting a lot more, the more people that are
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joining, the more are happy and on board and more thumbs up we're getting. Um, it's, it's definitely
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been, and like Dale says, these little pop-ups that we're driving by, they're absolutely incredible.
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They're everywhere. Yeah, they are. Yeah. Yeah. Seems to be very steady. If they have lots of flag
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coverage, they're being inundated. It's, it's, it's definitely a steady going. So it is, no,
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it's exciting to see them. And I was out, um, out and out in Okotoks the other night and if we were
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driving to Okotoks to go to some friends for dinner and there was one right on the side of the road,
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they had all the flags out there. It's really exciting to see. Are you feeling that we can win this
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thing? If we get to the referendum question in the fall. The longer this drags on, the more we're
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only what a month to a month and a little bit into this right now. And already the turnaround that
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we're seeing in the support is absolutely amazing. When we first started, there was a lot of apathy.
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Right. A lot of people didn't pay attention. They didn't care to know what was happening. Now that
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we are seeing, as, as you pointed out in one of your videos recently, the, the people that are
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very much against us, then we're getting twice as many that are very much for us. It's, it's one of
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those things where once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. Right. Like the, the, the, the vision that
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we have for what Alberta can be is so much brighter than the vision of what Alberta would be as a part of
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No, I, I feel that I feel the same way. I think, you know, we're, we're getting more pushback and I
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did a video the other day that you were starting to see, I'm kind of concerned about it. I think
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Jeff Rath is, um, um, has talked a little bit about this. I'm going to get somebody on the channel
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to discuss it, but we're starting to see people almost getting violent with us. And, you know,
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that's, that's never a good thing. This is democratic process and our side would never do anything
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like that. Keep cool. If you're out there and you're at a petition, um, you know, at a, at a desk and
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you're signing people up and somebody is causing problems, call the police. And there are laws
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against doing this kind of thing, of course, but the more we get pushed back from the rest of the
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country, I think, um, the more we're over the target, I guess is the best way to see it myself.
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At first they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. And then we win.
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We're at the fighting part right now. Yeah. And throughout the summer, as we're going
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through the education phase, we're going to see a lot more pushback and a lot more anger.
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But eventually they're going to have to turn around and say, you know what, this is all just
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about a vote. That's all it is. If they, if they're against it so much, then they have the opportunity
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to vote. No, just like we have the opportunity to vote. Yes. That's right. And you're starting to see,
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you're starting to see the national media ask about it as well. Pierre Polyev was asked about this
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yesterday and it was the final question he got when he was doing a news conference. And he said that,
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you know, his party there, they're about Canada. That's what they're all about. They've got 34 seats,
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I think out here in Alberta that they want to desperately hold onto. If we leave, they're done.
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They'll never be back in, but you're hearing more people talking about it from a national basis.
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Vicki, did you want to add something there? Well, I would, one event we were out at, I had
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a couple of ladies sitting at a table and she saw my scarf and she was like, what's that about? And so I
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told her that, you know, we were there taking signatures for the independence movement and,
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and the gal on, and she was quite curious. The other gal was like, oh, I am not signing that.
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Yeah. And right away she wanted to go at me. And as soon as I got back home and I just kind of turned
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and addressed another gal beside me and I left her alone and I watched her and she was listening.
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And as the night went on, I actually got a hug at the end of the night. It was beautiful. So
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we just have to have patience with them. I think a lot of it is fear. They, they're not getting out
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to hear. And, and me too, in the beginning, I was quite scared, but once you get out to these meetings
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and you hear the speakers, it, it takes away that fear. It gives you that sense of hope. So I highly
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encourage if anybody has not gotten out to hear our speakers, they need to get to a session.
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I think we get kind of frustrated because we've heard, we've heard the arguments all the time.
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Well, you're landlocked. We've heard the arguments all the time. Well, we're going to lose our Canada
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pension plan and our OAS. And we've heard, we've heard this so many times and we know what the
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answers to those things are. Well, you know, regarding landlocked and CPP, which you can keep,
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by the way, it follows you wherever you are. A lot of people haven't heard this. They're just starting to
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catch on. So we need to educate those people. You want to educate people. Al coming up on Saturday,
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you've got an event coming up, Calgary and Edmonton unite in red deer, slow roll Saturday,
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February the 21st. What is that? What are you, what are you doing here? What's going on?
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Well, it's kind of great that the weather is cooperating with us. So we won't have a lot of
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people outside taking signatures this weekend. So it's going to be a great weekend for the entire
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province to come together in our central city and show our support for what is actually going on.
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We want to show the massive numbers that we have for the support for our independence and,
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and just for re recalibrating what Canada is about one way or the other, Alberta is going to change the
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future of Canada. However, that turns out in the end, we'll find out, but this slow roll that we're
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doing right now is going to collect all of the people that are interested in going for a nice
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drive on a Saturday morning. We're going to go up to red deer. We're going to probably stop over on a
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crosswalk that's over top of the QE2 and we'll do a flag wave and possibly get some drone footage of
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that. So we're working with a gone up in Edmonton and Garth and red deer, the guys that organize all of
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the cruises in those towns. We do quite often the ones here in, in this city with, we work with
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Vivian. She's another, another supporter and we're just going to get everybody together and have a good
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time after afterwards. We're going to roll around for a little bit up there and then there is an
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event, the rebel event going on up in Edmonton afterwards. So some of us will be going up to that
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after the slow roll is done and red deer. Okay. Good. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Vicki.
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I think the biggest thing is to show Alberta our, our small fringe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See how,
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how much we've grown. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, that again, people see these people seem to follow
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the mass, right? So if they see how massive we're growing, they're just gonna, you can't,
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you can't avoid our excitement. Yeah. So what do you, what do you have to do here? When,
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when is it leaving? Where do you meet up? What do people have to bring along? I guess I,
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you know, I've great. Now I've got this, this picture behind me. Generally I have an Alberta
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flag in there. I've got my hats back there and behind me, it's just hidden behind this graphic
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here, but what do you want people to do on Saturday and, and what time and, and how do they get involved?
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Well, 1130, we're going to be leaving the iFly at Deerfoot city here in Calgary. Right. Right. And I
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believe I don't have the times, but you have it on your graphic there. I do. The people in Edmonton
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will be gathering and leaving the mall that they've got up there. I believe at around 10,
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because they're going to slow roll a little slower than we are because while we're from Edmonton, of
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course, and we're all going to meet up at the Peter's drive in at one o'clock and the people in
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Red Deer will also join with us in Red Deer at around one o'clock at Peter's driving. And from
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there we're going to do a, we're going to inundate Red Deer with a bunch of blue and wonderful flags.
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Yeah. Great stuff. So 1130 AM leaving Deerfoot city. I'll put the graphic up in post-production
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here. Arriving at one o'clock in Red Deer at St. at Peter's drive in slow roll and red flag and flag
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wave to follow. So anybody can just show up. Are you looking for anybody that's got a vehicle to show up
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at Deerfoot city at 1130? Do they have to, do they have to register or just show up and be part
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of the event? Just be part of the event. We're just looking for a bunch of like-minded people to
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get in their car and go for a drive with a flag on the car or banner or whatever it is that they
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decide that they want to put on their car or just something. They don't even have to put anything on.
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Yeah. You're right. You know, the weather has changed a lot. I mean, it's right now in Calgary,
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I've got minus 23 right now in Calgary. We got snow yesterday. Temperature is going to be
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pretty cold for the next four or five days. I'll tell you, I was talking with Jeff Rath on
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the phone last week. And in one of my videos, just before he called me, I said that God was
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on the independent side because the weather had been so nice. It's been unbelievable,
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but we knew whether we knew the winter was going to come back, right? We knew it was coming back
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and it has with a vengeance. So hopefully we'll get some more warmer weather as we get into March.
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But yeah, it might be a good weekend to do this event. So if you can get out there and get
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signatures by all means do that, but it's going to be pretty darn cold if it's minus 10,
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minus 11 outside and a lot of, not a lot of people want to get out of a car to sign anything
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when it is so cold like that. So this might be the perfect thing for people.
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I am currently trying to set up a venue right now where we may have a short signing session.
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We'll see how that goes. I'm still in discussions with the people and
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Well, there will definitely be canvassers there anyway. So if anybody wants to sign 100%. And if
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anybody wants to carpool, they don't want to miss the role, reach out. I'm sure there's, you know,
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vehicles that we can fit people. The more the merrier.
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You betcha. Yeah. It'll be, it'll be great. I think I'm going to go. I've been up to Red Deer
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in a little bit and go up there. I've never been to Peter's drive-in. So head up to see what that's all
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about as well. Um, and, and the thing is I'm trying to get an event going as well. I'm looking
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for a kind of a window that's a little bit warmer. I've been talking about it here on the channel as
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well. Uh, but best of best of luck to you with this sounds, it sounds like a great thing to do
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as the temperatures have dropped pretty, pretty drastically here in, in Calgary and here in, in
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Alberta over the last week or so with this cold weather throwing, uh, rolling through, always good
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to talk to you. Good to see you guys as well. Thanks so much for being on the channel.
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No worries. Thank you for having us. Like you said, God works with us. And right now,
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if it wasn't for the cold weather they were getting, we probably wouldn't have as great
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a turnout next weekend. Cause everybody be out taking signatures instead of driving the cars.
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We hope people will see it, uh, or come out to it again, leaving Deerfoot city, 1130 AM arriving
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at one o'clock in Red Deer and, uh, just head out there with your car. If you've got a hat, you've got
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a flag, put it up on your vehicle and it should be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks so
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much for being on the channel. Thanks for having us. Mr. and Mrs. Al, we appreciate you being here.
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If you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for
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notifications. I will see you in the next one. Raise your mugs guys. Raise your mugs. Thank you.