The Critical Compass Podcast - October 28, 2025


I Am Alberta ｜ Independence Rally Recap - A 10,000 Person Strong HISTORIC Sea of Blue

＂I Am Alberta＂ Independence Rally - You DO NOT Want to Miss This One! I Am Alberta ｜ A Cinematic Look at the October 25th Independence Rally

Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

176.92

Word count

3,386

Sentence count

227

People

Also mentioned:
Mocha Antifa Soji

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A quick recap of the I Am Alberta event hosted by the Alberta Prosperity Project and the APP on October 25th. We talk about the turnout, the media coverage of the event, and what we learned from it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 Hello everyone, welcome back to the Critical Compass. I'm Mike and this is James. As usual,
00:00:27.760 we are here to do just a quick recap on our experience at the I Am Alberta event hosted
00:00:35.760 by the APP, the Alberta Prosperity Project, this last Saturday, October 25th. James,
00:00:42.980 what do you think? Just right off the top of your head, don't even think about it.
00:00:47.220 There was a sea of blue. That's the first thing I noticed. Great turnout, just lots of happy
00:00:56.040 people to be there. It was just positive vibes all around. It was such good vibes and I was kind
00:01:01.400 of worried, but I think we sort of were maybe anticipating a little bit more animosity, a
00:01:07.460 little bit more of a significant contingent of adversarial people there. But you know what?
00:01:15.680 Of the estimates vary. There were some police there, some event police that kind of gave some
00:01:22.760 estimates that perhaps at peak it was about 10,000 people. I would say pretty, maybe conservatively
00:01:28.460 between 5,000 and 10,000 people would be a very, very conservative guess that, you know, the crowd
00:01:33.680 varied from time to time. But it doesn't really matter at the end of the day how many in between
00:01:38.260 that estimate there was because it was, the ledge was full, it was bumping, everyone was having a good
00:01:44.760 time. Um, it, it was a really, it felt at least to us, uh, a very convincing showing. I don't know
00:01:52.980 if you would say that's the word I would use. It was convincing.
00:01:55.760 Yeah. It got a lot of people out, but, um, I feel like it also didn't get a lot of people out that
00:02:03.600 are not the ones who are predisposed to actually go to events, go to political. There's a lot of people
00:02:10.960 who, I have some friends, even they've been happy to support in one way or another from the comfort
00:02:17.620 of their home, but they're not one to actually mobilize. And I feel like this event is making
00:02:23.740 future events going to be more successful because of this. It's going to set them up for success that
00:02:30.000 people can see an example of like, well, here are the vibes at this one and a future one. Well,
00:02:36.060 first of all, there's going to be tons of footage, like the one, like the footage we're showing now,
00:02:40.480 uh, there's interviews, there's some great visuals and that helps build the momentum that helps
00:02:48.220 spread the message and that will help convince people to come out next time. And if next time's
00:02:53.520 even more people, if there's even more blue, then, uh, then perfect.
00:02:58.800 Yeah. I lend some credence for those people who might've been a little bit shy or a little bit,
00:03:02.540 uh, worried about, you know, oh no, like if I show up to this thing, I'm going to be,
00:03:07.480 uh, you know, it's going to be a small crowd and I'll be noticed. And, you know,
00:03:10.140 maybe, maybe they're not ready to, uh, maybe their closet, uh, independence, uh, fans at the
00:03:16.900 moment. So yeah, it's good. It, and, and, and I think just the, another thing too, that is going
00:03:22.680 to lend some, maybe some cache to it is how blatantly obvious the complete ignoring of the
00:03:30.540 event was by the media. Like you could not hear enough about, like, I got an Apple news notification
00:03:36.440 on my phone about the teachers, uh, demonstration a couple of days prior. And I think that probably
00:03:41.720 was more people overall, but that was many unions and it was organized. And there's some,
00:03:46.060 uh, uh, I've heard some rumors that there was some, uh, money exchange for certain people to
00:03:52.080 be there, certain contingents of people to be there. Um, but, uh, but it wasn't that much bigger.
00:03:57.620 It wouldn't have been, it wasn't double. It wasn't even, you know, it wasn't even 20 or
00:04:02.640 30% more. Like it was pretty darn close and not a peep in the media about any mainstream,
00:04:07.800 uh, publication that I've seen or news network.
00:04:10.780 So the CBC did, uh, three minutes on that. Um, but they also have, you can tell there's
00:04:19.740 the bias woven in like they did interview a couple of people and they heard people speak,
00:04:24.260 but they did introduce somebody who's like this person wearing a mega hat said blank,
00:04:29.100 blah, blah, blah. And then let the guy speak. And they're like the fact that they're introducing,
00:04:33.040 like they chose that guy to talk to. And then they introduce him as mega is like, you can tell
00:04:41.420 they're just leaning representative of this movement. Yeah. They're leaning into just like,
00:04:46.980 they have years of demonization that they just have to say this magic word. And then somebody will
00:04:53.280 just paint a movement as mega or they'll just transfer that same hate they have for mega to
00:05:00.260 this movement just because of that one person. So CBC is very smart about how they do that. Um,
00:05:06.480 other than that, no mentioned from like global had a helicopter flying around. Yeah. The global
00:05:14.120 and they had no coverage so far. I don't know if they're letting it bake. Like they're doing a
00:05:21.620 low and slow, like letting it cook for a little while, uh, letting it become tender. Um, I don't
00:05:28.860 know what they're doing with that footage. Um, they obviously had camera, they, they have cameras on
00:05:33.000 that thing. So we, uh, we were lucky enough to meet, uh, Mr. Mocha, uh, busy again, uh, the independent
00:05:42.600 media, uh, independent journalist who's, uh, you know, become known for, uh, exposing corruption at all
00:05:49.080 levels of government and private enterprise. And he's, uh, he's a real treasure actually right now.
00:05:54.840 And so he interviewed us a little bit and he posted a clip. We'll, we'll link it below.
00:05:58.180 We'll link that. Yeah. We didn't really expect that because, uh, we were, we were up top or headed
00:06:03.120 down and on the way, well, you were striking up a conversation and then I said hi as well. And he's
00:06:09.900 like, do you guys want to do an interview? And just off the cuff explained why independence,
00:06:15.800 like what, why we think, uh, it's helpful for Alberta. Well, like why it's, why it's a good
00:06:21.360 thing. And he ended up using more of that than I thought he would in, in that edit.
00:06:27.040 Yeah. Yeah. Pretty, pretty, uh, pretty hefty clip of that. So that was cool. Um, so, I mean,
00:06:32.860 like I wish somebody from, you know, uh, uh, um, you know, uh, uh, credentialed, you know,
00:06:38.160 public, uh, publicly funded news outlet would have asked us the same questions, but what are
00:06:42.700 you going to do? So we had our sign, we had our, uh, change our minds, uh, sign. And, uh,
00:06:47.360 honestly, we didn't really even have anyone kind of attempt to everyone who walked by was
00:06:51.560 pretty, uh, enthusiastic about the sign. We got a lot of pictures taken with it. Um, a lot
00:06:56.960 of people asked us for the file to, uh, so that they can print for themselves. So, uh, that
00:07:01.940 was cool. Not much mind changing because they already had their mind. Yeah. It was
00:07:06.620 pretty, uh, you know, we, we talked about it after and we were like, you know what, we
00:07:10.060 should probably be going to, uh, even we sorted the, even just the crowd was not
00:07:15.100 going to be one. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes another event, right. Another weekend. Um, we might
00:07:21.280 have more mind changing, but I feel like the visual of that is like, it's the sign
00:07:28.320 turned out great. Um, until you get a printed, you don't realize how much, how
00:07:31.920 large a three foot by four foot sign is, um, big, nice to have that. Like made some
00:07:38.920 good conversations, even met, um, professor in, in Calgary doing a, doing research on
00:07:46.900 the Alberta independence movement. And as we're chatting with him, um, he couldn't
00:07:53.480 really give a, an opinion, which is, well, it's good that he's like being, being very
00:08:00.080 strict from an academic sense. Yeah. He's taking it seriously. Yeah. But you can
00:08:05.140 tell they're very curious because I, like, I'm curious to actually see this
00:08:11.200 study come out because if he was ideologically motivated and already had
00:08:16.760 his mind made up, they would not be like the conversation we had would not have
00:08:21.940 gone as long. Cause we were talking about some of the principles and they were
00:08:25.400 asking, well, what about this? What about like, they are legitimately curious
00:08:29.920 about like the thought process behind it or the reasons and the rationale.
00:08:35.520 And I think, which is nice to hear from somebody in the, in the university
00:08:38.520 system, which can, you know, has sort of gotten a reputation for itself in, in
00:08:42.620 recent, in, you know, at least the last decade of being fairly, um, sort of a
00:08:47.960 monolith and it's, uh, or activist based. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was really
00:08:53.520 good. He was a, he was a cool guy. So I hope, um, I hope we gave him some, some
00:08:58.140 good tidbits. Yeah. We'll have to, we'll have to follow up and see when the
00:09:01.040 studies actually, or like what it actually materializes in, into. So, um, I feel like
00:09:07.460 this is the, the start of like the movements growing. This is the start of the
00:09:14.900 momentum growing. Um, one thing with the media is that them ignoring is, I feel
00:09:23.520 like there's still room then because if you get so big that you cannot ignore,
00:09:28.800 they'll have to run more hit pieces. Um, and I feel like another rally might be,
00:09:35.440 maybe it's too big to ignore, or maybe it's just harder to ignore. Uh, there's
00:09:39.720 more footage circulating around before this, the media is more from smaller
00:09:43.920 events. It's more from like the APP zone event and that's a town hall or it's,
00:09:48.900 it's, uh, it doesn't have the same visual. It doesn't have the same, uh,
00:09:53.640 iconic feel to it. So all these things. Yeah. And the, the ignoring is a, is a sign
00:09:59.880 of being scared as well. They're not, they're, they're not interested in, uh, it's
00:10:05.240 not in their financial interest to make our movement seem well attended at all.
00:10:10.900 So, so that's good. That, that is a nice thing to know. I mean, if they
00:10:13.620 weren't, cause if they weren't scared of it, they would be covering it. They
00:10:16.440 would be, you know, doing their best to, you know, report the news faithfully as
00:10:20.100 it happens, but they're making an intentional decision and, uh, and that's
00:10:24.320 fine. That's, that's, um, I would, I would rather it be this way than them
00:10:30.400 thinking of us as a joke because that was not a joke. You know, there was that,
00:10:36.360 that, um, that area of the legislature was packed and it was, yeah, it was
00:10:43.240 awesome. Did you know what was not packed? James, my friend, was the, um,
00:10:49.660 contingent of Antifa that showed up, uh, maybe about, uh, the last three.
00:10:54.300 I thought there'd be a few more. I, yeah, it was normally, normally there's more,
00:10:59.500 more Antifa at the Soji protest and the Million March. Yeah. Yeah. Um, they had
00:11:07.160 significantly more. They had like 30 people at that, this one, they maybe had a
00:11:11.160 dozen, uh, for the size of rally. We have a picture of it. Yeah. The, the other
00:11:16.360 thing to note on this is that, that, uh, the upper area, the most Northern area
00:11:20.720 before you walk down to actual legislator to that flat, the flat grounds of the
00:11:25.620 legislator leaning up to the steps, the raised area, since there's still people
00:11:31.120 hanging out, hanging up on there, I, at first I was worried like, well, maybe you
00:11:34.700 should just bring everybody down, but I think it scared Antifa. Like it kept them
00:11:39.080 up there. Cause they, all they see is they just see like a bunch of blue signs
00:11:43.840 below because they didn't really walk in and maybe they could have found a spot
00:11:47.220 and they could have set up down there, but they weren't actually able to
00:11:51.420 disrupt the event in the same way. Uh, because normally it's noise and visual
00:11:57.940 distractions. And that's the, uh, like that, that's their way of trying to
00:12:05.100 shout out the message. That's the MO, right? Yeah. Is, uh, if they can have random
00:12:09.320 shouting or an air horn or like these like horns in the background over somebody's
00:12:15.200 speeches, then they're preventing a message from going out and they're, they are
00:12:18.800 doing their job as a anti-racist. Or they, uh, yeah. And they use, yeah, they, uh, use
00:12:24.940 the technique of, uh, of, uh, blasting like copyrighted music and stuff so that anyone
00:12:30.320 recording the event can't use the footage cause it gets copyright struck. The, the
00:12:34.880 kind of the leader, the, um, I don't know, the high priestess of their group there
00:12:38.840 had a, uh, had a megaphone that was, she was kind of boisterous for a while
00:12:42.440 there, but. Yeah. We were close enough that it was, it was annoying to like talk
00:12:46.120 over. So it was disrupting. Yeah. And there was, there was probably, I'd say,
00:12:50.420 I don't think it's an overestimate to say that there was maybe two, two police
00:12:54.800 officers or, or one police officer and a sheriff per Antifa. Yeah. Well, uh,
00:13:01.300 here's the thing. And they were kind of surrounding them. From the start, we were
00:13:04.040 just hanging out. We're at that upper part and the cops were kind of tucked away
00:13:08.920 off to the side. They were doing nothing. And there were people pouring in like
00:13:13.300 hundreds and we just, people were just walking by, kept on walking by, had their
00:13:17.940 signs. Yeah. Everybody's friendly. Like it was the most safe and comfortable
00:13:22.520 place. Cops were off to the side. We like, I saw them in the corner and they,
00:13:26.100 they seemed really bored. It's super clear, like leaning on their bikes. Like
00:13:30.380 they were bike cops. They're just talking, they're just doing their thing. Yeah.
00:13:33.720 And then a couple Antifa show up and they just immediately walk over there
00:13:37.740 because like that's the only potential for any disruption is just from those
00:13:44.420 people. There is nothing else but good vibes from everybody else at this kind
00:13:51.040 of event. And literally I did not see a single officer in the, like there's that,
00:13:57.580 yeah, like you say, the upper, that raised portion on the, by the federal
00:14:00.020 building. And then you walk down the kind of the ramp, you know, to the main
00:14:03.500 legislative grounds. I don't think I saw any down there. I think they were all
00:14:07.520 up on the federal area. I saw one or two kind of off to the sides in the crowd.
00:14:11.540 Okay. But there weren't like. So they, but they weren't engaged at all. Yeah.
00:14:14.980 They didn't really need, it's not like they needed a unit of five of them to
00:14:19.780 like strategically be in one area. Uh, like they may have had like a couple
00:14:25.360 planes, like, uh, officers in planes, clothes, clothing and everything. But again,
00:14:31.320 that shows the difference between, there's almost more cops at some of these other
00:14:35.860 protests between teachers and, or like, like, uh, parents and some of the gender
00:14:41.720 ideology, the million arts for kids, like that was more involved than they actually.
00:14:48.140 Very much. Yeah.
00:14:48.740 It was more actually combative because you had more of a direct us versus them
00:14:55.260 kind of like that. That's kind of the dynamic that was established going into
00:15:01.340 those kinds of protests where this one, we like people call it a protest, but it
00:15:06.480 is more just a rally. It's just saying, yeah, here's our message. And it's not
00:15:11.320 like it wasn't in opposition to a particular person other than like Ottawa in the
00:15:19.440 East, but even that it's like, yeah, it's a little bit more nuanced than that. So
00:15:23.660 yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and that's actually what we said on the, uh, when Mocha
00:15:28.680 was interviewing us, you know, it's the, the, the more P the more people that realize
00:15:32.800 that this is actually a very nuanced issue and it's a very, like, there's much more
00:15:38.120 to it than just like, we're a bunch of redneck separatists that want to destroy
00:15:42.860 the country. Like that's not, that isn't sufficient to capture the, the intent and
00:15:48.740 the momentum behind this music behind this movement. Um, so yeah, it's, um, yeah, it
00:15:55.800 was cool. I thought it was great. I think it's, um, like we were saying earlier, you
00:15:59.300 were saying, um, it's a, uh, it's a good, it's a good omen for future, future rallies
00:16:07.200 because this lends, this lends cachet, you know, to the, to the cause and shows people
00:16:12.840 that, yeah, you are, there are lots of people who think just like you and you're not
00:16:17.660 going to be like, you're, you're not unique in thinking that something is wrong
00:16:21.100 here. Uh, and, uh, and that you, your life would be better if you had more control
00:16:26.620 over it. And we're normal people. We're not, uh, you know, crazies. We're not
00:16:32.880 scary. We're not violent and aggressive. You know, it's very like, these are very
00:16:37.500 salt of the earth people. These are the guys that you want to, uh, you know, to be
00:16:41.720 your neighbors and to, you know, they'll help you build your deck and pull your truck
00:16:46.520 out of the ditch. Like they're, these are the guys that you want to be associated
00:16:50.040 with. Cause they're the people that actually have, uh, in their hearts, a very, um, kind
00:16:56.460 of a can do mindset, a very entrepreneurial mindset, independent streaks that, you
00:17:00.920 know, you know, they're, they're hunting for their own meat kind of thing. Like
00:17:04.720 these, these are good people and they're, and they're doing this for their, for the
00:17:09.180 future of their kids. They're actually thinking they're forward thinkers. They're not
00:17:12.840 selfish, but they're fundamentally unselfish people to care about issues like this. So
00:17:18.020 saw a good number of families there. And even just, uh, yeah, on the way down, we
00:17:22.840 were, uh, brought their dogs out and yeah. Yeah. Some good, good representation on the
00:17:28.900 dog front. Um, yes. Also, if you didn't come to this one, make sure you come to the next
00:17:33.560 end. I, I guarantee if you just say hi and chat with people, you'll, you'll be pleasantly
00:17:41.200 surprised at the, the kind of vibes you get. For sure. Yeah. Well, Hey, I hope you
00:17:47.020 enjoy the footage guys. And, uh, um, thanks for, for, um, for sticking around with us.
00:17:51.580 I know we have a lot of viewers and, um, commentators who are very passionate about
00:17:56.680 this issue, you know, pro pro and con and, uh, and we appreciate it. Um, whatever you
00:18:03.200 have to say, we appreciate, you know, we, we made that sign for a reason. Uh, we'll be
00:18:08.040 taking it out more places. Uh, if you come, you want to see us, you want to yell at me
00:18:12.160 and call me an idiot and say, I don't know what I'm talking about. That's fine. I, I, 0.99
00:18:16.020 I welcome it. We'll, we'll, we'll hash it out. Maybe we'll, uh, you know, regardless
00:18:19.860 of how passionate we are on either side, maybe we'll go have a beer after. And like, this
00:18:23.940 is just, you know, we're just, we're just like, we're just, we're bouncing ideas around
00:18:29.500 until we get to the best ones until the best ones float to the top. And, uh, and, uh, we're
00:18:34.640 not here to, we're not here to, you know, make ourselves seem above anyone or smarter
00:18:40.580 than anyone. We're just literally trying to find, uh, you know, what's going to be
00:18:43.860 the best course of action for our future. You know, I think that, that kind of sums
00:18:48.080 it up.
00:18:49.160 Absolutely. Well, uh, yeah, thanks for sticking around for this update. Um, we
00:18:54.500 might have a little bit more footage posted after two, but, uh, we'll see. Um, we'll
00:18:59.420 see about that as well. So, all right, well, we'll see you in the next one.
00:19:03.640 Thanks, James.
00:19:05.220 Yep. Thank you, Mike. And cheers.
00:19:07.880 Cheers, guys.