Western Standard - Alberta’s union-initiated MLA recall stunt has collapsed

00:00:00.000 Good day.

00:00:29.900 Welcome to The Cory Morgan Show. As you can see over my shoulder, we've got somebody else in the

00:00:35.500 new guy chair there. That's Jackson Loy. So keep an eye. Let's see if he's biting his nails or

00:00:41.120 something. He hasn't eaten any noodles or anything yet, but everybody gets their introduction to the

00:00:45.980 Western Standard getting to sit behind me for one of these shows. So as you can see, for Jackson

00:00:49.600 and you guys, it is a live show. Be sure you use that comment, scroll, send your ideas, thoughts

00:00:54.280 my way uh you know just keep civil and try not to uh get on each other's case too badly we can save

00:01:00.200 that for x i've got for a return guest i guess you could say we'll get it together this time

00:01:04.920 mitch sylvester uh from stay free alberta on the petition for a referendum in alberta it's been

00:01:11.320 busy going wild i mean the town halls have just been overflowing i've been going to them but it's

00:01:16.440 kind of strange they've switched it's no longer app now it's stay free and you've got a petition

00:01:21.160 in certain areas and things so uh we'll go over a bit of that all right well let's get on uh

00:01:26.160 something i've been looking forward to talking about but i had to wait till the deadlines

00:01:28.760 approached and that's direct democracy in alberta and the recall legislation so in the background

00:01:34.520 you know enraged over the back to work order imposed on striking alberta teachers and they

00:01:39.620 were emboldened by the success of thomas lukasik's petition about nothing union activists felt they

00:01:46.320 could capitalize on the ire and use Alberta's recall legislation to overthrow the UCP government.

00:01:52.120 And I mean, in theory, it could be done. Daniel Smith's party only holds a narrow majority,

00:01:56.540 actually, and if as many as five seats were fully flipped over the NDP, then head and inch,

00:02:00.040 you would become the premier with a majority government. So they began with the lowest

00:02:03.900 hanging fruit. They went after Calgary, Bo MLA, Dimitrios Nicolaitis. Now, the choice made sense.

00:02:10.880 Nicolaites is the Alberta education minister,

00:02:15.940 and he won the constituency by only a little more than 600 votes in the last election.

00:02:21.080 So if a by-election were held in Calgary Bow,

00:02:23.560 there'd be a chance that they could swing that to the NDP.

00:02:26.340 Now, legacy media and establishment pundits,

00:02:28.440 they were overjoyed with this development.

00:02:29.780 They report on the initiation of the recall process against Nicolaites

00:02:32.780 as if it was a true uprising of Alberta voters.

00:02:35.360 They laughed at how Daniel Smith's own recall legislation

00:02:38.160 was being turned upon one of their own members.

00:02:41.080 Some speculated it might be the beginning

00:02:42.620 of the end of the UCP government.

00:02:45.100 Then the recall applications, they spread further.

00:02:47.060 Every few days, legacy media jubilantly reported

00:02:49.240 that Elections Alberta had approved

00:02:50.420 another recall initiative against the UCP MLA.

00:02:53.080 Soon, 26 recall initiatives had been approved,

00:02:56.540 representing nearly 30% of the seats in the legislature.

00:02:59.500 Legacy media's husk tones implying a government overthrow

00:03:02.140 were becoming shouts from the rooftops.

00:03:04.180 Surely Daniel Smith's government is going to be humiliated,

00:03:06.540 hoisted by its own petard.

00:03:08.160 Political scientists speculated Alberta would be heading to a spring election so Smith could avoid being brought down by all these recall initiatives.

00:03:16.440 Oh boy, yeah, they were really worked up.

00:03:17.720 And then when UCP Minister Rebecca Schultz resigned from cabinet, headlines ensured to note that Schultz was one of the MLAs facing a recall initiative.

00:03:25.640 Was she fleeing before the recall could happen?

00:03:27.900 The deadline for the first recall is now less than a week away, and reality's come home to roost.

00:03:33.620 The prime activist organizing a recall against Demetrius Nicolaitis was forced to admit that

00:03:38.820 with months to work at it, she's only garnered 6,000 signatures on her petition.

00:03:43.180 That leaves her 10,000 short of the number required to trigger a recall.

00:03:47.840 With this kind of petition, there's usually about a 10% error rate in the signatures too.

00:03:52.720 So her initiative is more likely closer to 11,600 signatures short of the mark.

00:03:57.680 It didn't even come close to making it.

00:03:59.940 Nicolaitis' political career may face many challenges,

00:04:02.260 but being recalled isn't one of them right now. So why though was it impossible for the petitioner

00:04:07.060 to get 16,000 signatures in one constituency when Lukasik managed to get 400,000 of them

00:04:12.040 across the province? Well, it's because recall legislation is written to ensure the initiative

00:04:16.060 must remain local. Petitioners have to be registered and they got to live within the

00:04:20.120 constituency. Outside money and workers can't be used on a recall initiative. Lukasik was able to

00:04:26.420 utilize union and activist groups and concentrate his petitioning efforts in an area of strong

00:04:31.780 support. The activists targeting Nicolaitis have to use local resources and they have to get only

00:04:36.940 local people signing and she clearly couldn't gather enough of them. Real petitioning is tough

00:04:41.080 work. Anybody can make an online petition that can garner thousands of signatures in a short time

00:04:45.000 but to get real physical signatures in person with a name, address, phone number gathered by a

00:04:50.060 registered petitioner is a whole different story. A hard-working petitioner working on an eight-hour

00:04:54.280 day might get a hundred signatures. To get 16,000 or more takes a large organization with a motivated

00:05:00.480 electorate, and neither of those existed in Calgary Bow, and it doesn't exist in any other

00:05:04.340 constituencies. Look, all it takes to start an initiative is 500 bucks in an application formed

00:05:09.460 to Elections Alberta, and that's the easiest part. That's why 26 of them were set off. The

00:05:14.200 petitioning part, though, has stopped the initiatives in their tracks. The rest of the

00:05:18.140 initiatives are in areas with even stronger support for the UCP than Calgary Bow. One of

00:05:22.180 them is against Daniel Smith in Brooks Medicine Hat, where she won with 66% of the vote. Another

00:05:26.760 is in Highwood where the UCP candidate won with 69% of the vote. These initiatives are dead in

00:05:31.040 the water. In a way, it's good that Alberta's unions put the recall legislation to the test

00:05:35.260 like this. They prove that the bar is set high enough to stop frivolous recall efforts and the

00:05:40.400 abuses of the system, but it's not set so high that it's impossible to initiate one, but it'll

00:05:45.400 only have success in the most exceptional circumstances, and that's what it was supposed

00:05:48.760 to be there for. A local MLA will have had to have breached public trust so badly that a large

00:05:54.200 majority of local electors feel they can't wait until the next election to fire their representative

00:05:58.620 and a lot of MLA's have ticked people off but they haven't reached that bar yet and the electoral

00:06:03.620 cycle will take care of it I guess in a year and a half from now. Union temper tantrums aren't

00:06:08.580 going to cut it. The upcoming year is going to be a historic one. We got petitioning to invoke an

00:06:12.360 independence referendum. It's almost sure to be successful and not necessarily the referendum

00:06:16.580 but the petitioning for the recall or referendum anyways. So it's time to turn the page on the

00:06:22.220 recall stunt pay close attention to real direct democracy in action though and it's sweeping the

00:06:26.500 province right now all right that's what's got me going right now how's it going dave corey my

00:06:31.440 friend you have my deepest sympathies i figured you were going to want to go on about this let's

00:06:37.520 get it out um well you guys lost your seventh straight playoff game yes seven straights oh

00:06:43.880 and seven not a good record and for those who don't watch regular yes i'm a steelers fan still

00:06:48.920 a steelers fan disappointed steelers fan and you had to stay up till 2 a.m to watch the game yes

00:06:55.400 because i had been at a speaking event up in bentley and uh the game while the game was on

00:07:00.600 so i for a change people might have noticed a gap of you know five hours of me no more on twitter

00:07:05.560 or anywhere on social media because i didn't want to find out the score so i sat up that late to

00:07:09.720 replay the game and uh see them mutilated at 32 6. ouch ouch well i have offered you a chance to

00:07:17.640 jump on the uh seahawks bandwagon and you you turned me down i'm afraid so i that was a family

00:07:23.000 commitment thing i would lean that way but my daughter's a 49ers fan so i i got to cheer for

00:07:27.720 the 40 okay well maybe next week after we thrash the 49ers i'll see at that point then i'll stay

00:07:32.440 to the west i'll promise that um what are we going to do about jackson's mustache i mean that is

00:07:37.480 cheesy right yeah it's it's that youthful porn stash we're seeing more of those going around

00:07:41.960 that look you know it's kind of in i guess maybe i'll have a chat with him after after we're done

00:07:46.680 little caterpillar on there lots going on in the news this morning cory we've got more details on

00:07:52.760 that horrible horrible attack on that woman in edgemont in calgary she was showing her house off

00:07:59.720 for possible to a possible tenant and he attacked her and and tried to strangle her to death and

00:08:07.160 it's a miracle this woman is alive and she fought back and and was able to to kill her attacker

00:08:13.640 and calgary police say it's the most blatant care the most obvious case of self-defense that

00:08:19.960 that they've ever seen uh we're all on tenterhooks for iran uh waiting for uh donald trump to uh

00:08:27.000 press the button uh u.s bases in qatar are evacuating personnel so it looks like something

00:08:35.000 will happen and uh it's also a race to save the life of that uh the guy who's become the face of

00:08:42.040 the uh the rebels uh who's due to be due to be hung uh at some point today uh francois legault

00:08:49.720 resigned as um premier of quebec today uh his party is doing terribly in the polls and would

00:08:57.400 have been wiped out uh and they're gonna get a new leader in before the fall election uh interesting

00:09:05.080 you'll find this one interesting corey the uh the government has been ordered to release all the

00:09:09.880 files into the kamloops residential school uh alleged graves you remember when the uh the first

00:09:17.480 nation made that allegation they got 12 million dollars but one of the things they had to do was

00:09:22.920 report on the progress that they were making and the uh the government has so far refused to hold

00:09:30.600 it they refused to release it and the information commissioner came out today and uh ordered it

00:09:38.280 to be released. And Canada's former, this is not a good portion of Canada's history when we fled

00:09:48.140 from Afghanistan and left people behind. The former ambassador there is admitted for the first time

00:09:54.700 it was a bit of a mess up. And David Duckworth, Calgary's top civil servant, is keeping his job.

00:10:01.620 There were some media columnists who were demanding that he be fired and thought that it would happen

00:10:06.840 and it didn't happen. He has survived. So he gets to stay on and lead us through our water woes.

00:10:13.320 Well, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, Mike Thomas there is watching everything City Hall

00:10:17.760 and covering it excellently as usual. I mean, we thought this would be the first time finally

00:10:21.720 somebody senior in City Hall and the administration is, boy, they've got a stranglehold on the

00:10:27.700 elected. I don't know what it'll take. There's just no accountability at all. If this doesn't

00:10:32.320 get someone fired nothing will no no again i took the wrong career path you know i know should have

00:10:38.680 been a federal level 400 and some grand a year and probably more pensions than he can count

00:10:44.460 well what was it duckworth said that uh he had to get mental health counseling for his staff

00:10:49.680 little uh ducklings under him uh when the report was released because you know it was saying naughty

00:10:55.220 things about yeah it was a scathing report by an independent group and uh you know before he sent

00:11:00.620 out to his staff. Duckworth had crisis counselors on hold. It's ridiculous. I mean, these people

00:11:09.100 have tried to work a day in the real world and where you get real ramifications and they just

00:11:14.580 wouldn't last. Well, I mean, I still hold optimism with Jeremy Farkas. He's an interesting one in

00:11:20.780 there. To be fair, he's not really hard to the right or left. He just kind of goes with what

00:11:24.620 he is. He's a smart guy and we'll see what happens in Calgary City Hall. It sure needs

00:11:29.380 a change. Something needs to happen, yeah. Right on. Well, I'll let you get back to your newsroom

00:11:35.460 covering all that, growing your playoff beard, I guess. Yes, playoff beard, not shaving until

00:11:39.880 Seattle wins the Super Bowl. Hopefully it's this year. I hope so. You'll be rubbing it in for our

00:11:47.400 gentleman who has difficulty with facial hair. Yeah, so I'm going to go talk to him about his

00:11:50.700 mustache right now. All right, thanks, Dave. You bet, Corey. All right. That is our news editor,

00:11:55.680 dave naylor and uh yes i mean look stories all over the place i mean from international you know

00:12:01.040 things in iran going on to locally in calgary where yeah the water lines are falling apart

00:12:06.000 yet again and everything else in between and new reporters as you can see in the background the

00:12:10.960 reason we can do that is because you guys subscribe so i gotta remind you get on there

00:12:14.640 guys westernstandard.news subscription take one out it's ten dollars a month hundred dollars for

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00:12:27.360 writing them and it helps support us so we can keep getting uh those reporters spreading out

00:12:31.760 we've got uh jeremy borg out in toronto we've got uh jared out on the west coast we got people all

00:12:37.520 across this country so again thank you if you've subscribed already if you haven't yet

00:12:44.400 it's about time uh let's see what we got some of the things in comments either way um

00:12:50.240 Um, plenty going on out there. Hopefully we're going to have Mitch in pretty soon in a couple

00:12:55.140 of minutes here. Uh, so yeah, I mean, he's going to be talking about the, the independence movement.

00:13:00.100 So the, the referendum campaign in Alberta, well, the referendum itself isn't going yet.

00:13:06.560 So what's going on is there's so much confusion and that's, I'm looking forward to,

00:13:09.700 to Mitch clarifying a bunch of stuff on. So what's got to happen. I'll kind of give those

00:13:14.260 steps. They need over 177,000 signatures on a petition, real signatures. Like I was talking

00:13:19.100 about earlier with direct democracy has to be physical has to be with an accredited petitioner

00:13:24.340 there who registers with elections alberta not just somebody picking up a clipboard and going

00:13:27.920 to the door and they got four months to do it and as i said about 10 of those will get thrown out

00:13:33.620 now this group the independence bunch app which now is it's a stay free alberta is the group

00:13:40.180 doing it mitch will explain why that had change uh they're just going great i mean they've been

00:13:44.880 organizing for years. They've been getting people ready to sign. So I attended a couple

00:13:48.880 meetings, one last weekend in Calgary, in South Calgary, and another one up in Bentley.

00:13:55.400 And we've been seeing the reports from Fort McMurray, Innisfail, Biceker, Lincoln Hall,

00:14:00.840 just everywhere, all these different ones, Millet. The same thing is happening at each and every one

00:14:06.440 of them. They are just overwhelmed with supporters. They're just coming out in droves.

00:14:13.720 people lined up literally in Queensland down the road for blocks, wanting to sign the petition.

00:14:20.980 And there was never a seat to be held for the speaking part. A lot of people at both events I

00:14:25.720 went to, likewise in Bentley, I was speaking. There was maybe a couple hundred people in the

00:14:30.300 hall I was speaking to, but in the back, there was just an endless line of people coming and going,

00:14:34.160 signing these petitions. And this is just the first couple of weeks these guys have got months

00:14:38.760 going on. Um, so, I mean, there's really something happening and, you know, is the best way to put

00:14:46.260 it. Something special, something unusual. Uh, I just want to put a note out to, uh, it looks like

00:14:51.040 a commenter, uh, James Tower, you know, uh, threw a seven bucks at us. Yeah. Thank you. You know,

00:14:55.620 one of those things on, on YouTube, you can kind of toss a few dollars into, to help and, uh, get

00:14:59.800 some comments up there and things like that. So thank you very much, James. Every bit helps us

00:15:04.420 with independent media. I mean, contrary to what some people might think, uh, we aren't all actually

00:15:08.960 all that rich and everything. So, uh, I appreciate that super chat going on there. So will we reach

00:15:18.140 the, you know, the, that, that timeline for this petitioning and the rest? I mean, I'll just carry

00:15:23.900 on with that. Four months of that, it's going to finish sometime in early May. Probably would take

00:15:29.580 elections, Alberta, a month perhaps to process that stuff and get it up there so that it can be

00:15:37.040 approved, presumably. And then the referendum would be held, I'm guessing October. That'd be

00:15:44.980 my thought. So nine months of solid independence talk going on in Alberta of re-evaluating

00:15:51.040 what our place is in the Federation. You know, polls have been coming out, different ones. It's

00:15:59.480 been interesting to see that. And there's one group saying that this polling group saying

00:16:04.400 there's 17% support for independence. That's what they're claiming it at. And another one,

00:16:08.520 and these are both large pollsters and the other one is saying 31%. So that's a rather big

00:16:15.000 discrepancy. You know, there's always going to be a little difference between pollsters and polls

00:16:18.700 and things like that. But a spread by that much is pretty outstanding. So what's going on out

00:16:26.400 there. I mean, this makes it hard to trust the polls. It really does. But most of them have

00:16:31.620 stayed around 30% for the most part in the last year and some, especially since the last federal

00:16:38.220 election really brought people into realizing the futility of trying to change things within

00:16:43.800 the federation. So I figure it's probably still around 30. That's a long way from the 60, I think,

00:16:55.260 that really needs to happen. And my guess would be that there's 30% that never are going to go

00:17:00.560 for independence. There's never, I mean, that's fine. It's a big leap. It would have to get

00:17:05.900 incredibly bad before we're looking at 80 or 90% support. But 60, I think is very possible,

00:17:11.400 but it really depends on two things. One is how are the campaigners doing over the course of this

00:17:17.280 next six, seven months? And of course, what the federal government does to inflame people further

00:17:24.880 within the province and, you know, you know, bring about that support. So some's beyond our

00:17:31.360 control, some's within it. Let's see. What's this from James, a commenter? What's this about

00:17:36.760 sanctioned venues for signatures? I thought as long as you have an Elections Alberta badge,

00:17:39.960 you could be a canvasser and collect signatures pretty much anywhere. Yes, there's some of the

00:17:43.840 things I was really hoping Mitch would show up for, and hopefully we'll get him very soon

00:17:47.520 to clarify on. So let me tell you about how it works with official petitioning. I've signed up

00:17:55.460 to be one just as an Albertan. I'm not a member of any group or anything else, but still as an

00:17:58.680 Albertan, it all has to run through State Free Alberta. That's the proponent. That's the one

00:18:02.580 who filed to get a referendum going. So when you get involved in this, if you want to petition,

00:18:13.440 you have to sign an NDA. Some people were, that's a non-disclosure agreement. They were all upset

00:18:18.000 about that. What's this about? I won't have to sign it. Look, what'll happen is you're going to

00:18:21.020 get a bunch of people's personal information. You're asking them to sign a petition to give

00:18:24.060 their name, address, phone number, and all that. They don't want to suddenly find out that they're

00:18:28.200 on a bunch of mailing lists or that their employer found out that they signed something if their

00:18:32.200 employer not. That's all that's about. It's just saying when you take those signatures, they will

00:18:36.340 only be used for the point of the referendum, nothing else. And then you go through, and I'm

00:18:44.480 going to be going through one, a Zoom meeting with a training session. So they're going to go over

00:18:50.220 some things with me and every other person who signs, just to be sure you know exactly what you

00:18:54.800 got to do. I mean, there's a mistake that gets made a lot. People get post office boxes on the

00:18:59.040 signatures, for example, rather than a residential address. You can't use that. You must have it. So

00:19:05.460 I'm just, I'm going a long way here to explain what's going on. So Jeffrey Rath, I really didn't

00:19:13.380 want to get into him much. He's one of the larger, in a number of ways, proponents of

00:19:18.880 the independence movement. And he's been very involved for a long time. He's done a lot of

00:19:22.620 really good work for it. He really has. He's brought it a long ways to where it is, but he's

00:19:26.560 very outspoken on social media. And he put out a tweet about events that Jason Levine, who's

00:19:36.740 another independent media person, and he pulls people together and does things. He's holding

00:19:41.260 traveling meetings in bars just to talk about independence. And Raph got very upset with it

00:19:46.940 because he likes to keep everything around Raph. So he put out a large tweet this morning saying

00:19:51.180 this is unsanctioned meetings and you can't sign at these things essentially or things like

00:19:56.520 that and caused a lot of confusion with people. Can I sign there? Can I not sign there? What's

00:20:00.120 going on? Okay. Anybody can hold a meeting. I mean, you can't hold a meeting claiming you're

00:20:06.160 with State Free Alberta if you're not, and they weren't. Nobody has been, aside from State Free

00:20:10.700 Alberta, claiming to be State Free Alberta. Anybody with, as James is asking, with their badge can be

00:20:17.660 a canvasser and collect signatures when you've been properly registered. You can go door to door.

00:20:23.000 You can have a little coffee meeting in your area.

00:20:25.680 You can do all of these things.

00:20:27.220 What we don't want, of course, is anybody misrepresenting.

00:20:30.380 Nobody would want to be, you know, saying they can collect signatures when they can't.

00:20:36.900 There's a lot of worries.

00:20:38.240 We saw some online people talking, saying that they're going to sabotage this by registering as canvassers and then falsely garnering signatures and then just throwing them away and things like that.

00:20:51.300 It could happen.

00:20:52.740 but how many, how much, I mean, look at the trouble. And I know there's a lot of nuts.

00:20:57.060 So it'll get a lot of trouble out there. Look at the trouble they would have to go through. You'd

00:21:00.300 have to sign up, put your personal information in your ID, pretend to get all the way through

00:21:06.440 the process, uh, become accredited, get your badge. Then you're going to have to take your

00:21:12.540 own time going around door to door or whatever you're doing, getting all these signatures to

00:21:16.240 throw away. How many are you going to get a couple hundred? We're talking about a movement that's

00:21:21.360 dealing in the hundreds of thousands of signatures. So any nutcase who's really going to go to that

00:21:27.420 much difficulty to sabotage it, the impact is going to be negligible, to say the least.

00:21:36.200 So either way, this is how it works. And if you're signing a petition, I guess I'll get that

00:21:40.160 out there. If somebody's bringing one to you, you will have, they will have a badge. It's,

00:21:47.140 you know, it's embossed, it's stamped, it's got, it's an Elections Alberta badge. It's not something

00:21:51.780 you can make easily at home or something like that. They've been accredited to be able to

00:21:57.380 garner these things and speak on behalf of that. So it's kind of a little incumbent on you. If

00:22:01.440 you're worried about somebody disingenuously petitioning, well, make sure, ask for it. If

00:22:06.700 they aren't showing it, then certainly they should have those credentials with them while they're at

00:22:11.480 it. So, okay, great. I think I see Mitch in the lobby there. He's adjusting. I know he did say

00:22:15.460 he has to come in from his truck because he is running all over the place. This man is tireless

00:22:20.040 hitting meetings and speaking and doing all this stuff. So I want to bring him in because I've been

00:22:24.880 turning your ear for long enough. There we go. I mean, you hear me all right there, Mitch?

00:22:32.640 So I, well, we see Mitch anyways. Hopefully he can hear me.

00:22:38.900 Maybe not. All right. Well, we might come back to Mitch in a couple of moments. Maybe the coverage

00:22:44.260 is a little bit limited there um so i mean getting further with uh i'll talk about what i've been

00:22:49.520 seeing and and uh what mitch is doing as you can see he's dressed he's in the truck i'm only

00:22:53.540 guessing he's going to another uh meeting uh when he's dressed up like that and uh this is what

00:23:00.660 people are really enjoying this is something that's been unique this is something how they've

00:23:04.940 really built this base that now is exploding today because the meetings they're holding now

00:23:09.380 are just built upon from from dozens and dozens now i think cumulatively hundreds of meetings

00:23:13.760 they've held over the last uh few years and it's come to a head and now they're pulling it together

00:23:19.360 and of course with that organization they are just overflowing the halls people are coming out in

00:23:23.600 droves and the thing that was also astounding and going out to those meetings wasn't just people

00:23:27.840 wanting to come to sign the petitions but people coming wanting to volunteer they wanted to sign

00:23:34.560 up they wanted to get out there and do the petitioning themselves this this is really

00:23:40.800 outstanding i i have never seen anything like this i mean i've been uh messing around you know

00:23:44.720 pushing for the independence movement for a long time and something really unique is happening uh

00:23:49.680 maybe we'll see if we can get mitch one more time on audio and see if perhaps he's in a spot where

00:23:53.760 we can pull it in uh hello mitch have you got us at all hey cory can you hear me oh there i got

00:24:04.400 you i heard your voice there mitch finally yes can you hear me yeah i i'm hearing you now 0.99

00:24:10.800 Shit. Okay, we'll put Mitch back. Okay, can you hear me now? I'm hearing you, Mitch. Perfect. How are you? Good, good. Sounds like there's a little bit of a delay. So I've been rambling away. I know you're on the move, so it's hard to get to a spot to get good coverage. 0.99

00:24:29.200 i guess i'll start with the first question though i just wanted to ask because that's

00:24:33.440 where a lot of people are wondering what's going on what's stay free alberta what why

00:24:38.600 is this a new organization rather than what they've been accustomed to all this time and

00:24:42.800 getting ready for the uh independence uh referendum uh i'm afraid we've lost mitch

00:24:47.700 okay well i'll go into that one of these days we'll get mitch in to get it working right

00:24:53.240 technical issues. These guys work on the ground rather than digitally, which is, again, part of

00:25:00.960 their strength in a lot of ways where they can do face-to-face meetings, but not so much on the tech

00:25:05.880 end of things. So Stay Free Alberta. If you're looking to get involved with this, I'll get that

00:25:09.780 out there. StayFreeAlberta.com or as others, yes, sometimes jokingly or whatnot talk about it. It's

00:25:16.480 a feminine product. People are making fun of it. So what happened with the Alberta Prosperity

00:25:21.600 project it's still there it's still got its databasing uh it's it's where all of this began

00:25:28.640 i guess with the election the referendum legislation it has to be an individual

00:25:35.760 initiating it not a group something of that sort i was hoping that you could expand on that

00:25:41.280 and uh so they couldn't use the app to actually initiate this thing

00:25:46.720 so the proponent himself if you look it up on the paperwork is mitch sylvester

00:25:51.600 and the group is stayfreealberta.com. So it's, it's, it's the same thing. It's just different

00:25:56.680 branding. They're working to get this sort of thing all registered properly. It looks a little

00:26:06.060 more clear there. I see Mitch in the lobby. We'll give it one more try and see if we can get them.

00:26:11.480 And okay. Are you hearing me now there, Mitch? All right. No, that's not going to work. Okay.

00:26:19.280 So, I mean, as you know, guys, yes, the show really is live and it comes with most challenges.

00:26:24.660 It will come with a live show and everything.

00:26:26.600 So all I can say is I suggest strongly, guys, go to freealberta.com, check it out.

00:26:33.560 And, you know, you can get more details, straight up stuff on how to support this.

00:26:38.500 And hopefully, you know, we'll see how the petitioning comes about.

00:26:43.600 I'm not going to be able to make it.

00:26:44.980 There's a big event coming in Calgary at the BMO center on January 26th.

00:26:51.160 So for the Calgarian viewers, January 26th,

00:26:55.420 we want to see thousands of people there. I mean, I, and again,

00:27:00.240 I'm not saying we, in the sense that I'm part of that group, I'm not,

00:27:02.740 but I'm very supportive of it. I'm a guest speaker often for them,

00:27:06.040 but I'm an independent supporter. That's for sure.

00:27:09.480 And this is the way to stop

00:27:14.980 they can't stop us. They, you know, legacy media has been ignoring this.

00:27:17.880 There's meetings with thousands of people showing up all over the place.

00:27:20.340 You're not seeing it in the news. You're not hearing about it.

00:27:22.280 They're not touching it. When thousands show up in Calgary,

00:27:25.740 it's going to be hard to avoid. I was talking to Jane the other day,

00:27:28.940 for people who knowing their, their Western independence history,

00:27:32.380 there's a kind of a famous picture in Alberta with the Western Canada concept.

00:27:37.000 And Doug Christie was leading it and he's standing there with his hands up like

00:27:41.320 that and I believe it was the Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary which holds like maybe 3,000 people

00:27:47.600 and that was a picture that went all the way across the country and that was the last really

00:27:51.720 hard big peak of independence movements going on in Canada particularly in the west and

00:28:00.080 what we're talking about now the BMO centre could be two to three times as many people

00:28:08.000 just to catch their attention um just uh i see uh sorry our producer john messaging saying i want

00:28:16.600 to try calling mitch on the phone maybe give it a crack if you can get him clearly on there we

00:28:20.440 might bring mitch in just through audio on the phone because i really really want to talk to him

00:28:23.780 so as i said i won't be making it out to uh that gathering coming up because i will be uh actually

00:28:31.440 popping out of town as uh was mentioned a different interview i did taking my vacation for a little

00:28:36.260 bit I'll still be online and doing some stuff but I won't be able to get out to that itself

00:28:40.960 all right hello all right I hear Mitch on the phone are you hearing me there Mitch

00:28:46.040 I hear you perfectly and I can see you okay and I can see myself I don't understand how this is

00:28:53.200 not working but let's do it this way yeah okay well we got you and I can hear you good now if

00:28:57.440 we'll just do it through the phone with just audio that's that's perfect so thank you very much uh

00:29:01.700 we've got you uh at a roadside there mitch um welcome to the show well thank you very much for

00:29:08.200 having me great so i've been kind of stumbling along i think i know most of the basics but i

00:29:12.420 wanted to get right to the source and ask you because people are still kind of a little confused

00:29:16.620 and wondering what's up they want to uh support things and get rolling what's up with stay free

00:29:22.240 alberta okay so you know what it's basically we've kind of basically thought that monday of next week

00:29:29.960 everything would be a hundred percent flat out we'd have canvassers uh everywhere we'd have

00:29:35.160 sign-up sheets for everybody um so you know what that's going to happen we really believe that

00:29:41.000 we're going to have all manner of locations all around the province for people to sign up

00:29:46.520 in place and up on our stay free alberta.com website so you can find it there um so you know

00:29:53.340 what another couple three days and uh we'll be flat out and you know we've been trying to lay

00:29:58.600 the, basically the structure for this so that once we get going, we can take all manner of

00:30:04.300 signatures and, and, and drive it forward without any further delays. Yeah. Well, and we should

00:30:09.760 remind a lot of people, I know everybody's eager and there's a bit of impatience and everything,

00:30:13.760 but it kind of caught you flat footed when suddenly they said, Hey, January 2nd, finally,

00:30:18.080 here we go off to the races. And, and, uh, you know, it takes a little time to get thousands

00:30:22.680 of volunteers organized and moving. I guess we've got to remind people we want to move fast,

00:30:27.080 But there are a few months to work on this.

00:30:29.620 There's going to be time to get out there and get your name done.

00:30:32.880 Well, we've got until May 6th.

00:30:34.560 And the other thing that people have to understand is that they kind of sprung that on us at Christmas, like the day before they closed.

00:30:43.380 And so what's happening is our people have had the anticipation and all of that building and building since then.

00:30:50.360 But they didn't come back to work until Monday of last week.

00:30:53.360 so we've only actually been working with them for four or five days and just

00:30:57.320 getting clarity on what we actually can and cannot do you know according to to

00:31:03.380 bill 14's new rules to the citizens initiative act stuff that we had to get

00:31:08.300 clear before you know because the fines are are massive like if we break the

00:31:12.240 rule some of these fines are half a million to a million dollars so we want

00:31:15.620 to be darn sure that you know being the proponent that I don't have to pay a

00:31:19.120 million dollar bill or half million dollar bill no I understand your your

00:31:22.940 commitment to this but that'd be going a little above and beyond uh part of it as well as um

00:31:28.860 uh i mean i would imagine if they thought there was too much untoward they could

00:31:34.220 reject the petition or parts of or so on so i mean it's very important to keep everything

00:31:38.340 above board and and following the the rules laid out and and we got answers from them yesterday

00:31:44.660 so so basically we're able to you know clear up some of the things that we can do and cannot do

00:31:51.080 So in all fairness to them, they got back to us.

00:31:53.640 We got an answer yesterday.

00:31:54.880 So right now the path is clear.

00:31:56.920 We understand what we can do, what we cannot do.

00:31:59.440 And, you know, I'm going to Eckville right now.

00:32:01.100 I'll be there tonight.

00:32:02.100 We have another event in Red Deer tonight as well.

00:32:04.520 So we're going to be at both of those events.

00:32:06.600 I'll be somewhere Friday as well.

00:32:08.660 And then next week we go flat out and we get going.

00:32:11.760 And I heard your comments at the introduction saying that our town halls

00:32:16.400 have basically driven this.

00:32:17.820 And I 100% agree with you.

00:32:19.960 Oh, yeah.

00:32:20.520 This is going to be my 96th or 97th town hall on this particular topic tonight.

00:32:27.460 And we did 100 Alberta pension town halls before that.

00:32:31.960 So, you know, we've basically done 190 to 95 town halls in the last two years.

00:32:39.320 So we've been busy.

00:32:41.240 But as a consequence to that, what I believe we've done is we've built a base.

00:32:45.620 And we're seeing it all over the place.

00:32:47.760 That base is showing up, and it's just fantastic.

00:32:50.520 to see what's going on it's exciting well that's it almost a victim of your own success because

00:32:55.180 you built such a base and then everybody's ready to roll and then it all hits at the same time as

00:32:59.080 soon as it got rolling so it's going to take a little bit to streamline everything yeah and don't

00:33:04.080 worry don't worry we'll have lots of work for everybody oh i know you will and there's no

00:33:09.280 problem monday till the 6th of may it's going to be flat out yeah so with the legislation i just

00:33:15.060 wanted a little more clarity and i see a couple of the commenters asking the same thing there's

00:33:18.120 still just a bit of confusion from the last organization to stayfreealberta.com just what

00:33:23.220 why are you the proponent not the last organization and where should people be directing their their

00:33:28.660 efforts and so on so everything has to go through stayfreealberta.com so so alberta prosperity is an

00:33:36.740 educational society they can't weigh in on you know on picking a side on this and you know quite

00:33:41.520 frankly we only have one side so I mean we have to be very careful we're as

00:33:46.560 partisan as it gets we we're very nonpartisan on a message we think yeah

00:33:51.300 because we think that this is going to benefit all of Alberta however our

00:33:55.440 problem right now is that we have to make sure that we stay within the rules

00:33:58.680 of elections Alberta and that's why we waited for clarity but but now we're

00:34:03.480 built the structure from the you know from the bottom up we're basically going

00:34:08.880 to involve all of our volunteers now the point of getting the volunteers was to get into this point

00:34:13.360 and then putting them all together that was the point of the whole yeah no and i just wanted

00:34:17.360 people to hear from the horse's mouth because they get worried when things change or whatever

00:34:20.560 else okay guys stay free alberta is the place to go this is where mitch is this is where the

00:34:25.760 official referendum and and signups and meetings and everything can be found that's the place and

00:34:31.440 this is where our volunteers are working all right we're volunteers and we're taking more volunteers

00:34:37.440 all the time so please sign up to be a canvasser yeah that's that that's what we need you to do

00:34:43.280 sign friends and family uh if everybody does that we win so i mean kind of looking a little ahead

00:34:49.280 so i mean there's the big first step to go is getting the signatures getting the petition done

00:34:54.240 getting the referendum called uh presumably you know maybe in june or whenever when they finally

00:34:59.920 say okay that's it the numbers are in we're ready to roll we're scheduling a date would it still be

00:35:04.640 stay free alberta that's going to be the campaigning uh mechanism i guess when it comes towards a 0.84

00:35:09.200 referendum no it's going to go back to alberta prosperity project i believe okay uh you know

00:35:14.800 and whoever and that's going to be a total the campaign is totally separate from this yeah so

00:35:20.720 so stay free stay free is basically going to collect the signatures get it to referendum

00:35:27.040 or drop it on the premier's desk or elections alberta's desk and uh hopefully have big enough

00:35:33.840 numbers to force them to do that there's no choice for them to call a referendum for independence

00:35:39.200 with a standalone question well and i'm pretty confident you guys are going to do it but still

00:35:43.640 nothing can be taken for granted and it's still a huge task to to be under undertaken uh so i'm

00:35:50.200 really appreciate you guys hitting the ground running you as you said you're going to read

00:35:53.080 here i saw one of the commenters saying they're going to be coming up there uh somebody else

00:35:56.620 asking are we able to sign right up to may 6th uh yeah oh yeah we'll be able to say well we have to

00:36:02.300 have the petition in there a day or two in advance so i would suggest you know what let's let's do a

00:36:08.540 hard cap on may 1 so that we can organize all of our signatures and get them uh and get them you

00:36:14.120 know basically in the truck and accounted for before we get to elections alberta with that

00:36:19.140 so i i would say may 1 may 2 somewhere there whatever i don't know i don't know what what

00:36:23.900 the calendar looks like around those dates but probably the last the last friday of the week

00:36:29.160 before we have to give all that stuff or send out all that stuff to elections alberta will be the 0.70

00:36:33.980 cutoff on when we can take signatures yeah so i'm going to be in that bill tonight not red deer but

00:36:38.100 we have but we uh stay free has a red deer event tonight as well excellent okay and i mean again

00:36:44.240 reminding people i mean just because the deadline's that far the sooner somebody uh gets rolling on

00:36:50.880 it the better i mean we want to get it in so you guys can can file that get it finished and keep

00:36:54.880 reaching out to new people so yeah we'd like to get this done in the next month yeah like really

00:37:01.000 so that would give us three months more to get more people well absolutely you know get the get

00:37:06.220 the minimum done right away which I know we can do and which we're going to do and trying to do

00:37:11.260 and then after that just uh try and educate people on the benefits of freedom and independent Alberta

00:37:16.960 excellent well um I think you covered most of what I just kind of wanted to hit on I mean I

00:37:22.060 I would suggest for a lot of people, watch a lot of those meetings are being live streamed.

00:37:26.720 Or if they can get out to one themselves, get out to one, definitely get on and sign up if you want to volunteer.

00:37:32.120 So before I let you go, what else do you want to let people know before I let you get back on the road up to Echville there?

00:37:38.340 Well, you know what?

00:37:39.020 I want you to all understand that this is not going to get done without you.

00:37:43.340 We're an absolute grassroots movement.

00:37:45.940 I think the purest definition of it.

00:37:47.980 and we've kind of been forced to do that based on the fact of what's going on with media

00:37:53.060 and what's going on in the world.

00:37:54.820 So we're kind of back to the old, old ways of neighbors talking to neighbors

00:38:00.380 and friends talking to friends.

00:38:02.640 And so as a consequence to that, we need everybody to work,

00:38:05.620 but I really believe we can win this that way.

00:38:08.000 And that's kind of been the path the whole way.

00:38:10.260 So we're going to make sure that we get as much social media

00:38:12.560 or all that manner of stuff out there.

00:38:14.640 But the real work is going to be done by each and every individual.

00:38:17.980 And that's the way it's designed.

00:38:20.200 We've been going through this process now for a long, long time,

00:38:24.160 for basically two years, and everybody says to me,

00:38:27.140 well, when are we going to get a real strong leader

00:38:29.960 or a real strong voice for this?

00:38:31.720 And I said, you don't understand.

00:38:33.900 This is about the people.

00:38:36.360 That leader will come and go.

00:38:38.020 The people will have to do it themselves.

00:38:39.580 And once they understand that once they participate in our democracy,

00:38:43.360 then we will be very hard to unseat.

00:38:45.620 not only will we win but then we'll pay attention to what's going on and we'll be so much better

00:38:50.700 off for it in the long run so i believe that's the path that's my vision and hopefully you'll all

00:38:56.200 agree with that and participate excellent well you said it perfectly mitch and i fully agree you

00:39:01.060 can't beat facing somebody face to face and talking to them one-on-one social media is a

00:39:05.060 great tool but winning hearts and minds takes talking to somebody in person and that's what

00:39:09.400 you guys have built your model around so uh thank you i'll let you get back on the road i appreciate

00:39:14.060 your time today uh hopefully but perhaps we'll talk again sometime a little farther down when

00:39:18.680 the referendum is getting closer to wrapping up or the petitioning and uh we'll uh report on your

00:39:24.120 success be happy to do that cory thanks for having me excellent thank you okay guys so one more time

00:39:30.260 stayfreealberta.com that's mitch sylvester and yeah it's it's you know everything's been changing

00:39:36.820 on the dime i i saw somebody else pointing out saying that they'd signed up to volunteer last

00:39:40.580 Monday? When will they get their credentials? All I can say is probably soon. You got to remember

00:39:44.480 they have been swamped. People are coming out in droves. They want to help. They want to take part.

00:39:48.900 But all of that has to be carefully, you know, taken care of and so on. So that information will

00:39:54.340 get up to them and out to you. Another person, Colin, had said he donated to the APP. Was it

00:40:00.800 the wrong place or anything? I wouldn't say that. As Mitch pointed out, the APP is still there. It's

00:40:06.780 still important. It'll still be a huge part of the campaign for the referendum. So donation,

00:40:10.580 nothing there has been wasted. And the APP was a whole big part of what built the base on why

00:40:15.940 now this, this prairie fire of overloaded meetings is sweeping across the province.

00:40:21.960 So just keep watching because their website is going to get more and more efficient.

00:40:25.400 It's going to get, uh, uh, you know, more streamlined as these guys scramble to get it

00:40:30.460 done. When I did the Calgary meeting, uh, John Bolton was speaking of a Chippeac and, and, uh, 1.00

00:40:35.400 Dennis Kalma, and it was a really great thing. It was overloaded. Heather was a volunteer there.

00:40:40.780 Jeevan was a volunteer there. They were just overwhelmed. There was just only so much you can

00:40:45.360 do when thousands of people descend on you unexpectedly. So all I could ask is give them

00:40:49.740 some patience and it will come through and they want your help and they'll certainly welcome

00:40:54.560 your help. But, you know, being done from the bottom up, it really is, it's so much stronger.

00:41:00.020 that's how something like this can't be derailed because it's too difficult and when we're talking

00:41:07.080 about leaders and such i see others um asking about that you know necessarily um yeah at this

00:41:14.860 point it's decentralized but it gives fewer targets i guess for the whole thing you know

00:41:18.200 to be taken down it's it's the people uh state of Alberta saying i was wondering about this

00:41:23.180 can it be handed in earlier in 100 days 120 days say it's 500,000 signatures uh by day 90 you know

00:41:29.720 I don't know. I don't know if they let it run right to the deadline. My view on it, and I'm

00:41:34.940 not speaking for them, but my thoughts on it as far as campaigning goes, you know, I think they

00:41:39.640 should run it right to the end and collect signatures every day as if you're a thousand

00:41:43.840 signatures behind the whole time. Get every possible one all the way through. And because

00:41:51.480 this is the basis of the campaign for the votes anyways. This is, you know, the people who were

00:41:56.160 volunteering to petition right now are presumably going to be the same people volunteering to

00:42:00.540 campaign when the referendum comes. What a great organizational opportunity. This is the time to

00:42:04.800 come together. This is the time to practice. This is the time to reach out. So even if it turns out

00:42:09.380 you go the whole four months and you came in with a million, well, wouldn't that be awesome?

00:42:12.840 That'll be pretty hard to stop, won't it? And you'll have had that network of all these people

00:42:16.780 working on the ground and pulling it together. We're making history right now. And yes, I know

00:42:21.040 I'm biased, not necessarily for the, you know, any individual group or anything else, but I'm an

00:42:25.660 independent supporter and I have been for a long, long time. And all I can say is, you know,

00:42:30.620 talking as I was saying earlier, back all the way to Doug Christie and the Western Canada concept in

00:42:34.760 the mid 80s to today, I've never seen it like this. Never, never anything even close. History

00:42:42.540 is being made. A referendum is going to be held, whether or not it's won or not, that's still up

00:42:48.180 way up in the air that, but it's going to be held. We've never even done that before. Some people

00:42:53.140 that better start sitting up and paying attention. We'll see. All right, just a couple of stories I

00:42:57.720 wanted to hit on the end. I mean, some good news and good news from a tragedy. Dave mentioned that

00:43:02.820 earlier, that horrible story. Some people are hearing 48-year-old Shabazz Ahmed lured a 30-year-old

00:43:08.800 woman to a home in the community of Edgemont. He was pretending to rent a place. He assaulted her

00:43:13.100 brutally. She got broken bones, scratches. I can't imagine because the cops, as Dave said,

00:43:18.520 it was the most clear-cut case of self-defense they'd ever dealt with. So yes, he died. And

00:43:24.080 yeah, I'm not going to weep for him. You know, good riddance. He died. She defended herself and

00:43:28.740 killed him somehow. You know, there's not been details exactly how that happened after she took

00:43:32.920 such a terrible beating. But for a change, because, you know, in Canada and Alberta, it just seems

00:43:37.680 usually they charge the person defending themselves. One time, they got it right. I hope she really

00:43:43.620 recovers, you know, fully as much as she can. I can't imagine the terror and the trauma and the

00:43:48.660 rest that's going on. But in a sense, it's a good news story that some sick, you know, violent

00:43:56.420 murderer is now no longer on this planet. And the goofballs in her, well, and in this case, 1.00

00:44:03.780 they weren't being goofballs. Our law enforcement authority said, no, we are definitely not going 0.94

00:44:07.360 to charge her for defending ourselves. So let's expand that further. I want to see Castle Laws

00:44:10.980 a great deal more than that but uh that was one story that has really made a lot of news people

00:44:16.420 and realizing now there's bigger issues as to uh why we've got crime issues going on in general

00:44:22.100 uh coastal first nations mark carney talking speaking of why we've got to become independent

00:44:26.740 coastal first nations is a lobby group in fact they're foreign funded you know but the news

00:44:32.020 media the cbc and carney talk as if these are actually elected indigenous bands and they aren't

00:44:37.140 Kearney met with this lobby group on a pipeline to the West Coast, and two things happened. For one,

00:44:44.700 this lobby group said, we're not allowing a pipeline to the West Coast. They have no authority

00:44:50.320 to disallow it whatsoever. Kearney said, I won't put a pipeline to the West Coast if they don't

00:44:57.380 give approval. So even if they don't have the authority, if the Prime Minister gives it to them.

00:45:01.400 So guys, if you're waiting, thinking the federal government is ever going to do the West any

00:45:05.280 favors. As long as you're giving false authority to foreign funded lobby groups like the coastal

00:45:11.200 First Nations, it isn't happening. That's why I'm an independent supporter. All right, I'm going to 1.00

00:45:16.400 close out, watch the pipeline tonight. I'm going to have a guest host in next week. Like I said,

00:45:20.340 I'm escaping for a little while. And then I'm going to be doing some shows from out in the

00:45:23.400 field. Actually, it's going to be pretty fun. So keep tuning in, guys. Thank you very much for

00:45:27.520 tuning in today. Thanks for the comments. Thanks for that super chat. We do appreciate that as

00:45:32.180 well. And we will all see you all in two weeks. Tune in next week, though, to catch our guest

00:45:36.700 host. That'll be a fun, good show. And be sure to subscribe to The Standard. Thank you.

00:46:02.180 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - January 14, 2026

Alberta’s union-initiated MLA recall stunt has collapsed

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