Alberta Rodeo vs AHS ｜ 1st Day in Court
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
153.72937
Summary
Ty Northcott is the Coordinator and Event Organizer of the No More Lockdowns Rodeo that took place outside of Bowdoin, BC on Bullshit Boulevard. Ty has been charged with criminal negligence and conspiracy to commit a criminal act. He has pleaded not guilty and is fighting the charges.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Jason Kenney canning two of his MLAs, that just proved it right there. He doesn't want to hear
00:00:07.600
anything from anybody because he's trying to control everything within our province. And
00:00:13.040
if you step out of line of what Jason Kenney says, he just tries to delete you out of the system.
00:00:20.140
And if you really look back at everything, I think that's believed to be called a dictator.
00:00:30.000
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Western Standard, Nadine Wellwood correspondent. And
00:00:52.640
I am here today speaking with Ty Northcott. And Ty, as you know, was the coordinator and event
00:01:01.100
organizer for the No More Lockdowns Rodeo that happened just outside of Bowdoin on Bullshit
00:01:12.240
Thought we'd throw that in just for a little bit of fun there.
00:01:16.580
Ty, you were in court this morning and had to issue a plea as you received a summons
00:01:28.580
Yeah, we got a summons a week ago today, and it was for a court date for today. So
00:01:35.760
with everything that's going on and their social distancing and whatever, it ended up it was a
00:01:43.120
Zoom meeting with the judge and the Crown and my lawyer. So I never actually physically got to
00:01:49.840
attend it. But it was kind of over and done in about 20 minutes. My lawyer put in a plea for us
00:01:56.120
of not guilty and then requested a bunch of information.
00:02:05.120
Yeah, our next day will be June 21st. So it's a few weeks down the road. It really can't come
00:02:11.360
soon enough. We'd like to get this rolling as quick as we can.
00:02:15.440
And so when you started all this, Ty, did you expect that you were going to end up in court?
00:02:23.520
Oh, absolutely. That was our intentions was to take this to court and bust open the BS that our
00:02:29.600
government or AHS is causing our province at the moment.
00:02:33.120
And so you were expected the result that you've gotten. And you know, you've pleaded not guilty
00:02:45.200
We carry on the fight. My big thing right now is we want to get the other side into the courtroom and
00:02:55.840
get the battle going and see where it goes, see who's right and who's wrong.
00:03:00.720
The government, you're really trying to push their hand to ensure that they, you know, produce the evidence
00:03:10.400
Oh, absolutely. They need to show some proof why we're locked down like we are right now.
00:03:14.560
There's nobody has been getting any success in the court right now because they prolong it or they
00:03:27.120
just chuck the charges out. And we want to fight this right to the end. We want to see what Dina
00:03:32.080
Hinshaw has in her bag of tricks as to why we seem to have to be locked down. I mean, it's crazy right now.
00:03:39.040
You turn on the TV and watch the Cowboy Channel and there's rodeos happening in Montana, which is less than
00:03:45.120
10 hours from here and full crowds, no masks, no social distancing. It's over. There's 37 states open today,
00:03:53.040
maybe more as of today. But on Friday, it was 37 states and they're rolling. Life's regular.
00:04:02.480
It's none of the stuff that we're going through here right now.
00:04:05.600
And so what is the risk to the Canadian rodeo circuit if we don't get things back on track?
00:04:12.880
Well, it's been devastating for the last year and a half. I mean, we've been shut down since March
00:04:19.840
of last year, like a lot of businesses have been, and we can't sustain another two, three, four months.
00:04:27.920
What's going to happen is, as long as the government keeps controlling everything, like they are with
00:04:33.760
their grants and their casino money and all their, basically their buy-off money, I call it,
00:04:43.440
if they can keep a shutdown until fall, then they can control probably 90%, 95% of the indoor arenas.
00:04:50.000
We won't have no rodeo next fall unless we follow their bogus rules that, you know, they're just,
00:05:02.000
And so what do you think of Jason Kenney's comments around the allowing the Cowboys in for Stampede,
00:05:09.760
and some of the proposals that he's put forth to allow Stampede to proceed?
00:05:18.560
He's, I would like to see it happen. Don't get me wrong. I want to see all rodeo go. I don't care
00:05:25.280
how they go or what goes, but there's no reason for Stampede to be shut down at all. It's a very viable
00:05:32.320
operation. And I don't believe that there's no reason the Calgary Stampede can't happen as it normally
00:05:40.400
has, like say in 2019. We have a total, total safe society to live in right now. The only thing unsafe
00:05:49.600
about our society right now is our political system.
00:05:53.280
And so, having said that, what do you hope is going to be the outcome for, you know,
00:06:05.520
you've taken quite a big step here. You've risked, you knew that potentially you could see jail time
00:06:11.040
or a pretty hefty fine, and you did it anyway. Was it worth it? What's...
00:06:17.920
Well, it's a sacrifice, and somebody has to make the sacrifice. And I was willing to step up and do
00:06:28.320
it. I really wish there would be more people step up behind me or beside me and start putting rodeos
00:06:34.800
on. There is absolutely no reason that we shouldn't be putting rodeos on. The only thing standing in our
00:06:40.960
way right now is politics and bad politics, not even good politics. Last week, Jason Kenney canning two of
00:06:51.280
his MLAs, that just proved it right there. He doesn't want to hear anything from anybody because he's trying
00:06:57.760
to control everything within our province. And if you step out of line of what Jason Kenney says,
00:07:04.240
he just tries to delete you out of the system. And if you really look back at everything, I think that's
00:07:11.920
believed to be called a dictator. And that's exactly what Jason Kenney is, is a dictator.
00:07:17.520
And so now, AHS is, you know, came out with even more strict restrictions as a result of what some
00:07:25.440
people would say, almost a little bit vengeful of a response to the Bowdoin, just your rodeo. And
00:07:34.080
what do you say to the folks that go, you know what, just follow along, you know, comply with the
00:07:38.400
rules and this will all go away? Look at where it's got us in 14 months, just going along. It's got us
00:07:44.720
nowhere. And you don't see an end? Not carrying on the way that we're carrying on. You know, we may have
00:07:55.600
what some people want to call rodeo, it'll be without people in stands. And a lot of these rodeos are going
00:08:01.840
to drain their budgets because there's no income from sponsors, spectators, or vendors,
00:08:06.880
or anything like that. I mean, some of these rodeos can carry on for this year, but what are
00:08:12.240
they going to do for 2022 if it doesn't have some kind of change to it? Take away the government grants,
00:08:18.640
the government money that a lot of these rodeos are being funded with right now that claim they're
00:08:24.720
going to go this year. And their pocket of money that they had left over from years to pass,
00:08:30.880
they're going to burn through it this year. What's going to be there in 2022? Nothing.
00:08:34.720
So if you had a statement that you wanted to deliver to the people of Alberta, what would it be?
00:08:41.840
Open up, take the masks off, open up, resume your life, quit living in fear. The fear is caused by the
00:08:51.040
mainstream media and our government. And they're all connected. I don't know what the whole reason for
00:08:57.120
it all is quite yet, but we're working on that. But take the mask off, start getting out and doing
00:09:04.560
things. Quit hiding in your house. Now, I know AHS had put out a statement last week that there had
00:09:11.520
been no recorded COVID cases that were a result of the No More Lockdowns rodeo. I know you have a story
00:09:21.840
that you wanted to share about that. I had a lady send me a message last week on Thursday that she'd
00:09:29.040
went into a couple different medical facilities that were three to four hours away from Bowdoin.
00:09:34.320
And with her going in there, they asked her if she had attended Banff, I think it was Peace River
00:09:42.800
or Peace River area and Bowdoin. So AHS is on a witch hunt right now trying to find somebody that got
00:09:50.000
sick from coming to our rodeo rally and apparently they haven't found anybody. And I don't expect
00:09:59.760
they will because it's the end of flu season. We're done. It's gone. Now you have, was it James
00:10:10.320
Kitchen that represented you today in court or was it Dan Harder? Yeah, Dan Harder at Oles represented us.
00:10:17.520
He's working with James. They're good friends and they decided to work on this together and
00:10:24.560
I'm grateful to both of them. And so you're happy with the representation that you've
00:10:30.720
received from the Justice Centre? Absolutely. If anybody is wanting to get involved with what's going
00:10:41.200
on in the world, our world right now here in Alberta, even across Canada, the Justice Centre is,
00:10:48.240
they're pushing the envelope everywhere they can and every issue they can.
00:10:52.960
Donate if it's $5, $10, $20, $100, whatever you can afford, donate. It just helps the fight in all
00:11:00.160
this. It takes lawyers time and it's going to take a lot of money to get through this, you know,
00:11:07.440
with this fight. So we need to contribute wherever we can. Some people don't want to be on the front
00:11:13.360
line of the fight and I'm okay with that. I'll go to the front line if I have to. But if you want to
00:11:20.240
get involved, send some money to the JCCF. There's a couple other outfits out there fighting all of this,
00:11:26.800
fight the fines and wherever you can get involved, just get involved.
00:11:36.960
Yeah, we're on the burner right now. We're cooking. So it's everything right at this point
00:11:44.480
is short notice when we do it all. So, you know, if people can follow my Facebook page or the Northcott
00:11:51.360
Rodeo Inc. Facebook page, and we've got a couple other ones coming out here right away, follow the both
00:11:56.080
of them as much as you can. I can't friend everybody, but I try to friend who I can when I,
00:12:02.560
I can't keep up with social media these days. It's crazy. But follow us what we're doing. We've got
00:12:09.040
another event that's going to come out. It's very similar possibly to what the first one was. So we're
00:12:18.000
just talking with our legal counsel, seeing where we can go with it.
00:12:20.960
And so I just want to end, Ty, with some people think that this is just purely in defiance of
00:12:28.720
COVID restrictions, which it sounds like there is a little bit of that. But there's a real personal
00:12:34.560
aspect to this as well. I mean, this is heritage. This is intergenerational family, land, tradition.
00:12:41.440
It's also, personally, how you put the, it's bread and butter, how you put food on the table. And I
00:12:47.920
know at the No More Lockdowns Rodeo, you did give a rather heartfelt speech to the audience
00:12:56.720
about that. And so today, when we're talking, you know, what's, what is the significance to you
00:13:04.800
personally, if all this goes away? Well, this is our livelihood, it's been my livelihood since I grew up.
00:13:18.240
You know, for some people that are spectators, and a few of the competitors, it's, it's,
00:13:25.680
we're in the entertainment business. And for them, they're being entertained. And for us, it's our living,
00:13:31.280
it's no different than the guy that, you know, has a herd of two, 300 cows or more, or the guy that
00:13:36.800
picks up a hammer and builds a house every day of the week. This is our livelihood. And we entertain
00:13:43.680
people. And that's where people think that they miss the fact that people actually make a living
00:13:51.120
putting rodeos on. It's, it's a family thing that I've been involved with for well over 50 years. And I
00:13:59.120
got lots of families still involved. And, and I'm, I just want people to know, I'm not the only,
00:14:05.120
my family isn't the only family suffering from this. There's, there's hundreds of families across
00:14:11.200
Canada, that this is major, and I'm just talking stock contractors. When we get into people that are
00:14:21.200
in our production teams, like announcers and judges and secretaries and bullfighters and picket
00:14:26.640
man. And like, to put a rodeo on, it takes 50 to 100 people. And they're all losing their incomes
00:14:33.840
out of this. And that's just one rodeo. I mean, we got hundreds of them across Canada,
00:14:39.440
right from the west coast of BC, all the way over into Quebec. You know, this just isn't an Alberta
00:14:46.240
thing. But we're fighting in Alberta right now, because if we can make a difference here,
00:14:50.240
hopefully we can make a difference in some of the other provinces. Like last night,
00:14:55.840
I got a message from a person in Ontario wanting to know how they can put some rodeos on and
00:15:01.120
do what we're doing. I've had that same call out of BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba,
00:15:07.120
like, we're not the only ones trying to fight this right now. But
00:15:10.960
we're going to try and do our best to push this rodeo thing as far ahead as we can. And
00:15:19.760
my hopes in the whole deal is, it's not just for rodeo. It's for every sport out there for the kids
00:15:26.000
in school. It's for every business out there that's been shut down. We just want our province back
00:15:33.280
to the government that we originally voted in two years ago.
00:15:36.800
We went from being conservative to I have no idea what the hell you want to call it today. But it
00:15:43.680
sure is not a conservative government. It's probably the farthest thing I've ever seen from a conservative
00:15:48.880
government in North America right now. So there seems to be a real divide,
00:15:55.200
Ty, though, between what is happening in our cities and what people are demanding the governments do in
00:16:04.000
response to COVID, vice what's happening in the rural communities. And do you feel like you've
00:16:09.600
maybe gotten caught in the middle of some of that?
00:16:14.000
Well, I'm sure I've been caught in the middle of some of it. And I'm okay with that.
00:16:20.560
I don't know this for sure. But what I feel is rural people tend to get out, they have the land,
00:16:25.920
they have the area, they have the things where they can go do things and get out and talk to people,
00:16:30.720
they know what's going on. The majority of them do. But when you get into the city and you're crammed,
00:16:35.200
and you got tattletales here, tattletales there, telling on you if you have a barbecue in your
00:16:40.320
backyard. And like people got to quit that crap. That's child of school bullying, is all it is.
00:16:50.240
You got to get back to being friends and neighbors. This is what the government wants. They want to divide
00:16:54.960
us. They don't want us talking and telling the neighbor or anybody else what's really going on in the
00:16:59.840
world. And you can call it whatever kind of a conspiracy or whatever you want. But
00:17:06.720
there's a lot of crap going on that people don't understand and don't know. And they're creating
00:17:13.200
that through the fear like shut your TV off and get away from the mainstream media. And it's amazing
00:17:20.880
how much your life will change. Maybe you need to get out of the city or whatever if you're a city
00:17:25.920
person. The country people seem to be not buying into the BS anymore like they were two weeks,
00:17:32.080
three weeks ago kind of deal. The country is waking up. And Jason Kenney thinks he's still
00:17:38.240
got a thumb on everybody. But they're not that stupid anymore. We maybe were all stupid in March
00:17:44.480
last year, but we're not all stupid today. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak
00:17:50.160
with us. Any last final comments you'd like to share? Yeah, if you see any kind of rodeo out there,
00:17:57.120
go support it and don't be a tattletale if there's something going on. If you see a soccer game,
00:18:01.760
a ball game or whatever, enjoy it. Go be involved, whether you're a spectator, competitor or whatever.
00:18:07.760
Get out and start doing things. Get back in touch with our society because we've got a government
00:18:15.120
and a health service outfit that definitely aren't in touch with it anymore. Fantastic. Thank you so
00:18:21.920
much for taking the time to speak with us today. And we'll follow you along here as you get closer,
00:18:28.480
I guess, to the June 21st. Excellent. Really appreciate coming on today. Thank you very much.