00:00:29.880day welcome to the cory morgan show last one before july today's supposed to be a nice summer
00:00:34.940looking sort of day and it's supposed to go to hell again for a few days after that can't seem
00:00:39.200to avoid it this year even my bees are behind on their production it's pretty frustrated this
00:00:42.920global warming really needs to do a better job of things i say either way lots of stuff to cover
00:00:48.320stampede season's coming i'm going to talk about my thoughts and some of that what's going on in
00:00:52.360calgary shortly in a little while i'm going to have tanya clemens on she's the uh heading up
00:00:58.140kind of the new third party advertising group called let Alberta decide the one tied in with
00:01:02.740Keith Wilson. They did a big press conference for it last Friday and see what they've got on the
00:01:08.000role as we move into referendum season for the summer and into fall. So first, I mean, if you've
00:01:14.360been watching the news, what's going on with, uh, what turned into a politicized battle with,
00:01:20.700well, it's left versus right as usual. It seems actually, you know, Premier Smith and other
00:01:25.480conservatives saying that it's okay to have a party in the stampede, and some others on the
00:01:31.820other side saying, no, the city needs to crack down on the noise and such. And I'll give it to
00:01:36.400Rick Bell right in the middle, complaining and curmudgeonly about the whole thing, no matter
00:01:39.240what. At least he's consistent. But it's an element of a bigger issue. And Calgary has a culture
00:01:45.420problem. And the problem isn't among the citizenry, though. It's in City Hall, where these
00:01:50.780woke self-loathing souls have taken up habitation and they've been actively trying to undercut civic
00:01:56.220pride and change the nature of the city. They despise the agricultural and oil-filled roots
00:02:00.740of the city and are incrementally trying to erase traces of them. The Calgary Stampede is just their
00:02:05.620latest target and they're now trying to regulate the nightlife out of the world acclaimed party.
00:02:11.140Every city on earth has some sort of annual festival or fair but there's only a handful
00:02:15.260that have unique events that take over the entire city for a period of time and Calgary is fortunate
00:02:19.740enough to be one of those. The Calgary Stampede began as a rodeo but has become much more than
00:02:24.520that. It also has a large exhibition in Midway but again the event is much more than that. It's a
00:02:30.300state of mind that grasps the city for 11 days every year. People across the city dress in
00:02:35.140western wear from the tasteful to the outright cheesy. It doesn't really matter if a person's
00:02:39.400a cowboy or not. It's a period of good-natured fun cosplaying and people come from around the
00:02:44.420world to take part in it. Even downtown in the corporate world it's been a long-standing
00:02:48.980tradition that dress codes are relaxed during the Stampede Week and employees can wear denim.
00:02:53.680The events go well outside of the Stampede grounds themselves. Pancake breakfasts, barbecues,
00:02:58.420parties held in every quarter of the city and in people's homes. Businesses are decorated with
00:03:02.640hay bales and rail fences and windows are painted with western and cowboy scenes. You can't walk a
00:03:07.720block in Calgary in any part of town during Stampede Week without seeing evidence that the
00:03:12.220event is going on. Every bar turns into a party hub during Stampede Week. Western bars such as
00:03:17.400the ranchmans have become legendary for the stampede parties held there. Downtown tents
00:03:22.180are erected with stages where live acts perform and people party for every night of the event. Yes
00:03:28.320it's just a giant piss up for many people but that's part of the whole affair. I mean should
00:03:33.600we pretend that Mardi Gras or Oktoberfest are really any different? The stampede brings in over
00:03:38.340720 million dollars in economic activity to Alberta every year and it's the envy of countless cities
00:03:44.060that can only dream of having such a distinct and ongoing event.
00:03:48.160Unfortunately, to woke snobs, however, they see the stampede as something shameful.
00:03:53.000Look up Deborah Yedlin. She was complaining about the cowboy culture a few years ago.0.99
00:03:56.400That's the head of the Chamber of Commerce.
00:03:58.360They envision cowboys as hicks and rodeos as primitive.
00:04:01.500They envision a city of coffee shops and art galleries
00:04:03.800unsullied by these hundreds of thousands of partygoers,0.99
00:04:07.080and these pompous, fun-hating fools are entrenched in Calgary's City Hall.0.98
00:04:10.920It really began during Nenshi's era and continued with Gondek.0.99
00:04:14.440They began filling the vacancies with woke hipsters and continued for over a decade.
00:04:19.000Now we're seeing the fruits of all of that.
00:04:21.040Fort Calgary was renamed the Confluence, lest its proper name offend an Indigenous person somewhere.
00:04:26.220They tried to cancel the fireworks at Fort Calgary as well because they felt the city should be hanging its figurative head in shame over the Kamloops residential school child burial hoax.
00:04:35.040Calgary's slogan was changed from Heart of the New West, because it was too Western, to be part of the energy.
00:04:39.740but that referred to energy so then they changed it to the embarrassing and meaningless slogan of
00:04:44.700blue sky city it took them two steps but they managed to eliminate references to the west
00:04:49.760and oil field in a city slogan and it was no mistake now it's cracking down in the downtown
00:04:55.120partying partying calgary city hall is attacking a vital part of the whole affair and they know it
00:04:59.520the young people coming to the stampede are coming to party and to build memories if the lights are
00:05:03.680cut early and the sound is kept down it isn't a party out of 1.4 million people just over 200 of
00:05:10.040them complained about the noise last year and city hall felt that was enough to justify moving in
00:05:14.140look the stampede's been happening for over 100 years and partying downtown's always been a part
00:05:18.160of that if it's really that onerous for a few people living near these event tents they shouldn't
00:05:21.940have chosen to live downtown it's like moving next to an airport and complaining about the planes
00:05:25.620take a week out of downtown and move to the suburbs then if it's that bad the battle brewing over the
00:05:31.220party tents is much more than a small point of principle it's over the city taking a big step
00:05:35.400towards killing a festival that made the city famous people have to push back and not let these
00:05:40.120self-loathing calgarians work towards turning the calgary stampede into just another milquetoast city
00:05:44.780fair rest assured the latte lappers in city hall won't stop with just the tents it's part of a0.94
00:05:49.740larger uglier plan and they can't be allowed to win here guys well that's got me going how's it0.95
00:05:56.120going dave you going to the party tent uh no uh but i will say the the cowboys tent was not at
00:06:01.820millennial park it was down near the stampede grounds oh they've moved now it's in the middle
00:06:05.740of uh 9 000 families lived there so within earshot of it potentially i mean it's a few
00:06:12.300tall condo buildings those buildings are brand new too i mean that was just more mawata stadium
00:06:16.680and an empty lot until a couple years i don't i don't think your your airport references is fair
00:07:00.520Some people, a company installing a fiber optic line on the road outside of my place, managed to nail my gas line as they put the fiber optic cable in.
00:07:09.520It took them three and a half days to repair it, during which I had no hot water or gas stove or oven or furnace for that matter.
00:07:16.520Oh, it would have made you even more curmudgeonly than normal.
00:07:25.300So, yeah, lots of good stuff going on in the news.
00:07:28.580We're leading off with a big drug bust in the lower mainland.
00:07:32.320$1.5 million in cash seized, and they've got it all stacked up.
00:07:37.340It's a lot of 20s to make that amount.
00:07:40.26026 kilograms of cocaine seized, so it's a big dent in organized crime out there.
00:07:45.920Our friend, long and never to be forgotten, Stephen Gilbo, was on a podcast yesterday saying that the U.S. under President Trump, who he absolutely despises, will do better on climate change than Mark Carney.
00:12:20.340I mean, people within Calgary sometimes get a little tired of it.
00:12:22.420You feel that you've seen it all a hundred times, perhaps, or whatnot.
00:12:28.500But for visitors coming from outside of the city, particularly European ones, but also people from all over, they've never seen anything like that.
00:12:36.220When you're driving around, you know, you go even into a bank and everybody's dressed Western and they've got the, you know, the bales in there and all of that.
00:12:44.600It might seem cheesy to you, but it's actually something much larger.
00:15:28.060It's a group called Let Alberta Decide, and it will be one of the primary campaigning mechanisms.
00:15:34.240Some people are waiting for that as we have a referendum coming.
00:15:37.000And Keith Wilson has been heading that.
00:15:39.420He's going to be doing more academic papers, white papers he's talking about putting out to fill in more of the gaps left.
00:15:47.580You know, one of the things upon us, the independents have been really pushing on, though I think wrongly to a large degree, saying there's no plan.
00:15:56.580There's no plan. You haven't answered this. You haven't answered that. You haven't answered this.
00:16:01.540Now, whether you like Alberta Prosperity Project or not, and Stay Free Alberta and such, they do have a plan.
00:16:06.900They have their, well, I forget the name of it, the value of independence or something like that now.
00:16:13.880Either way, they've got a document with a costed document on their website that covers and they worked hard on and broke down a whole lot of these things.
00:16:54.860You know, Tanya on X, if you follow on there, I believe her handle is FarmGeek.
00:17:01.860And that's part of her background very solidly.
00:17:04.620So she's, she's rural. I'm guessing she's coming from somewhere down South and the internet isn't
00:17:09.680behaving very well for her down there. It happens now and then. So we'll give it a minute and see
00:17:15.420if that comes along a little more. Oh, there we go. Are we getting you now, Tanya? Is that,
00:17:22.260is that working any better? I hope so. Is that coming in a little bit? Okay.
00:17:29.000No, it can be a little frustrating. Okay. So I just wanted to start, I guess you guys kicked
00:17:33.040this off at a press conference last Friday. How have things been going for the new third-party
00:17:37.240advertisers since then? It's been going really great, actually. Like really positive support
00:17:42.920and lots of engagement with people. Donations are coming in, which is going to help us with
00:17:48.160being able to do all the priorities that we have set out to do. And yeah, so far it's been really
00:17:52.860positive. So I think people were looking for, you know, a little bit of space to have some civil
00:17:58.400discourse and ask questions and to get some answers to their questions so that part has been really
00:18:03.360great great so the the third party advertising group is is let alberta decide what is the mandate
00:18:10.560of that group there's many many third party groups out there now sort of where is the focus of this
00:18:15.220one going to be yeah so the focus of this one is to be able to reach that group of undecided people
00:18:22.020or maybe even folks that are a little bit in opposition to the independence movement at that
00:18:26.060moment, and engage them in conversation, deliver some education to them. Lots of that group of
00:18:31.680people are, they share the commonality with us, with most Albertans that we're frustrated with
00:18:36.600our place within confederation. And I think it's just a matter of being able to explain
00:18:42.880what has happened historically, why we're frustrated, and that there is a path out of
00:18:48.380this frustration that leads away from that. So it's engaging that group in some civil discourse
00:18:53.440and conversation yeah one thing i found that was uh striking on the site when i went on to it you've
00:18:59.480got a live counter a second you enter the site it shows how many dollars have left alberta
00:19:03.700to go into the federation without return on that investment and boy it ticks up pretty quickly
00:19:09.400there it's nice to see a visual to kind of remind people of just how poorly uh we get a fiscal
00:19:14.700return on things yeah the website's pretty awesome we have a great team that's using some of the
00:19:21.060coolest technology to implement things in our campaign but that website is pretty awesome and
00:19:25.860when you're seeing that that number scroll up so so so so fast you really get a good visual for how
00:19:31.300much money is bleeding out of this province and just continues to all the time so as your group
00:19:37.220you know you plan to reach out to the people who are undecided or considering you know uh independence
00:19:42.180curious whatever way you want to put it uh what is the plan to reach them though they're going to be
00:19:46.500public events? Are you coordinating volunteers, door knocking, literature? What sort of aspects
00:19:52.620of a campaign have you guys got planned? Well, a lot of that undecided population lives in the
00:19:59.680world of mainstream and legacy media. So one of our big plans is to make sure that we're out there
00:20:04.520and available for engaging with the media. That hasn't always been the case in the past, and it's
00:20:09.400been met with a little bit of opposition, a little bit controversial. So we want to make sure that
00:20:14.240we're willing to engage with that part of our world. And then also there will be a kind of a
00:20:19.540hybrid of traditional marketing campaigns. There will be some door knocking and educational
00:20:24.900brochures and information that goes out that way with our website and different avenues.
00:20:29.180But then also we'll be doing some really high-end digital marketing and social media marketing and
00:20:36.020campaign that way. We have a really great team that's very specialized in that part. So that
00:20:40.380it will be exciting to see that shift a bit too. Great. And then, so this is, I mean, how do you
00:20:46.300distinguish, I guess, you know, I mean, people work with more than one group. They work with
00:20:49.620more than one thing. Uh, Mr. Wilson is, is working with creating a white paper and, and, and items
00:20:55.260such as that, but he's still a part of this group that's formed as well. Like, like what's the,
00:21:00.040how's that whole relationship kind of work? Oh, we declared ourselves a third-party advertiser
00:21:05.600group as as you're kind of aware with how those groups work as well because we have a huge
00:21:11.040intention of spending well over a thousand dollars advocating for a certain outcome with the
00:21:16.200referendum questions so we've been working on that but then also if you're not advertising
00:21:22.520for a specific outcome and the Alberta Transition Council is just doing some education and research
00:21:27.960and putting together information for the general public of how a transition could happen for Alberta
00:21:33.120going from a province to a nation that's just educational material it's not not advocating
00:21:39.520either way and yeah so they're well inclined to be able to do a little bit of all those things
00:21:44.880i love that there's so many third-party advertisers out there that are all advocating for it and
00:21:49.040people often ask why we don't just have one and stick under one big umbrella and i don't know if
00:21:53.840like the public's quite aware that if you do that you're limiting yourself to a maximum limit that
00:22:00.080that you can spend on your campaign, which is $607,000 by having multiple third-party advertisers
00:22:06.520and each kind of taking their own routes to advocate for that same outcome.
00:22:10.320Then we have each group has that maximum amount to be able to spend.
00:22:14.500And when we're fighting against some of the huge opposition we are with the big bank accounts
00:22:18.540that we are, it's more important, I think, to have multiple people with multiple voices
00:22:22.760and bigger campaign to be able to work with.
00:22:25.760Yeah, so that press conference on Friday was very, you know, professional and well planned and organized. And there was a great deal of legacy media in attendance, wanting to see what's up and asking questions and such. What is your reaction or response been since the conference now as people have heard of you guys and, you know, are having a second look at you and considering getting involved?
00:22:49.860well i think it's actually opened up the door for conversation with uh mainstream media which is
00:22:57.860great that was kind of the intent to it we wanted to engage them in conversation and make sure that
00:23:01.860you know we're available to be able to discuss with them there was a great article just yesterday in
00:23:06.180the edmonton journal um about our tpa launching about let alberta decide coming on the scene
00:23:12.260so i think that it's been positive so far there's definitely a couple things that they've they've
00:23:16.340said in the media like when they first um ran the stories right after that launch was that you know
00:23:22.180they tried to make it seem like it was a rally a rally of 35 people showed up to support this launch
00:23:28.020knowing full well that it was kept small intentionally because it was a media event
00:23:32.580targeted specifically an invitation only to the mainstream media so there was a little bit of
00:23:38.100obscuring of words there but overall it's been really positive so far yeah that's that frustration
00:23:43.700and we see that in general, and that's what leads, I guess, some of the groups and individuals to
00:23:49.640sometimes refuse to speak to legacy media outlets, but at the same time, as you said, you got to
00:23:55.200reach the people who watch those, so even, I mean, most of the outlets can be pretty fair when you
00:23:59.720talk to them, but once in a while, they'll pull stunts, as you mentioned. Hopefully, they remain
00:24:05.540somewhat fair until the end of the campaign. We got to get to everybody. A question from Stuart,
00:24:11.000just saying, are you going to have signs or flags from your organization?
00:24:15.600I think that we will have some of those right now. We're not,
00:24:19.060there is quite a few organizations that are doing some excellent signage and
00:24:23.780we're happy that they're doing that and kind of want to stay in our own lane.
00:24:27.780So we're not overlapping and, and taking, you know,
00:24:30.460funding away from where it's best used by the people who know how to do it the
00:24:34.220best. But yeah, there's been some requests for, for signs and flags.
00:24:37.340So we'll get those available, I'm sure, in the coming days there as well.
00:24:43.200That's something that has been kind of unique.
00:24:45.120And I mean, I guess it remains to be seen whether this turns into a really good campaign with a bunch of different groups biting off chunks or if it turns into a gong show, I guess, by October, hopefully the former.
00:24:56.460Because, yes, it allows, I guess, some groups to say, well, we could take that part off our plate and focus on this over here and we can deal with this rather.
00:25:04.240Because, I mean, when you're a political party, you have to do everything.
00:25:06.220and with a tpa you can actually focus a little more yeah and also with a political party your
00:25:13.780campaign timeline is usually about a month if that we have a very very long campaign period
00:25:19.960with this so i think it's kind of important to try to allocate our resources accordingly and
00:25:25.300to not wear people out and then our big focus again is just like to really normalize the
00:25:31.500conversation around Alberta independence that that's not a traitorous conversation. It's not
00:25:37.400evil. It's not coming out of hatred or disgust. It's coming out of frustration and it's, we're
00:25:42.640going to be asked this gigantic question on referendum day. Alberta should be able to have
00:25:47.240some conversation and discussion around it. Yeah. So some of the, there's constraints with1.00
00:25:52.560third-party advertising and what can be raised, what can be spent. An interesting question from
00:25:56.500Carl Peterson saying, how do you know when a group has reached their maximum contributions,
00:25:59.740you know and then you would have to go somewhere else but i i believe the groups would report it
00:26:03.820themselves if they've hit the top they're just gonna have to say well we got to work with what
00:26:06.980we got yeah i would think that's how it would have to go because you have to report every week
00:26:11.840i don't do the reporting part for our tpa but the really smart people in that area of it they're
00:26:17.440doing that for us which is awesome but you would know quite a bit about that as well too
00:26:20.580so i'm yeah we're not we're not anywhere close to hitting that and then i guess yeah once
00:26:27.600yeah and once the tpa has hit that and you make that announcement then there is lots of other
00:26:34.320great tpas that would happily take those donations yeah and i don't know the state of every tpa but i
00:26:40.980suspect most of them aren't pushing on the brink of 600 000 yet uh but it's still a very good
00:26:45.960question because people want to support and it's different you know there's no maximums giving to
00:26:49.580well there's maximum individuals but there's no maximum a political party can collect for example
00:26:53.980like some of those distinguishments between political parties and third-party advertisements
00:26:57.980some people are going to have a bit of confusion in the next few months figuring that out
00:27:03.740yeah even for personally donating like lots of people don't realize that you can donate 5 000
00:27:08.380but that's the maximum you can donate for all the tpas combined your maximum donations right
00:27:13.500and you can also donate as your corporation so people are are wanting to cut some big checks and
00:27:19.820they're being very generous but you are limited by that amount so have your corporation write one
00:27:25.660have your your spouse write one have all of your adult children there's ways that you can donate
00:27:30.560more if you need to you just have to be aware that it is for all the tpa donations combined
00:27:34.980that you're writing yeah so uh you know i'll kind of leave off because since you're going to be
00:27:40.040the the person speaking for this group what drew you to uh jump out and get active on this and
00:27:45.460become the the face of this new movement here i don't know if i'm the face of it just one of
00:27:51.160yeah one of the faces and one of the people willing to stick their neck out of it but i have
00:27:55.360been involved with this for quite a few years now i've worked with the alberta prosperity project
00:27:59.520and worked with a bunch of different groups and then just on my own trying to engage albertans
00:28:04.960in the conversation so keith actually approached me and asked if i would be interested in doing
00:28:08.880this with him and for someone of his status that i respect so much and has spoken so calmly and
00:28:15.620respectfully to people about this topic i jumped at the chance to work with him and the team that
00:28:20.960we've got compiled is fantastic but yeah just working with everybody in this whole movement
00:28:26.220has been really great yourself for scott there's a lot of awesome people i've enjoyed working with
00:28:31.560yeah people are coming from all sorts of fronts that's for sure it's it's whatever happens is it's
00:28:38.020to be a first we've never quite seen something like this and we just want to make sure it's a
00:28:41.460positive first uh so before i i let you go then where can uh you know remind people where they
00:28:47.620can find your organization how they can support it and uh what what might you have in the works
00:28:52.260in the the near future yeah so if you go on to let albertadecide.com uh let alberta decide on
00:29:00.580any of the social media platforms there is donation links on our website so we would really
00:29:05.700appreciate the donations to help get us rolling get us going we've got our team started on the
00:29:12.020social media and the the digital advertising so that's kind of our our first steps is to really
00:29:17.760get that going so it can kind of start to compound and and grow exponentially over the coming months
00:29:22.740yeah so we'd appreciate it check that out great well i thank you very much for getting that rolling
00:29:29.300tanya and for taking some time to come in today to talk to us about it and looking forward to
00:29:34.880seeing how that uh tpa develops in the next few weeks and months yeah well thank you very much
00:29:40.600for having me and thanks for all you do as well pleasure all right thank you so that was guys
00:29:46.180tanya clemens of the new third-party advertising group let alberta decide and i i think a lot of
00:29:51.900people have been looking forward to seeing something i mean there's there's stuff going on
00:29:55.840it's that mixed blessing i guess of having different groups all coming from different
00:30:00.020directions. There's advantages, but there's disadvantages. The primary groups that were out
00:30:05.080there, Alberta Prosperity Project and Stay Free Alberta, it sounds like they might be getting
00:30:09.040some stuff rolling now. I'm not too sure. I'm not a member of them, but they were stalled for
00:30:14.120whatever reasons. I leave that to them to explain whatever happened. But this referendum campaign
00:30:19.620was getting rolling and those groups weren't budging. And now it sounds like there's things
00:30:25.580happening. I think Mitch Sylvester's speaking at an event in Red Deer tonight or something like
00:30:29.800that. So good. The more, the better. But having all these groups coming forward now, we need them
00:30:36.340focused on their own areas, perhaps. So this one looks really, really good. And as Tanya said,
00:30:41.420we need a rational approach. And we've got to remember, something I think that's happened in
00:30:46.120the independence movement a bit is some echo chambering. You know, the petitioning period
00:30:50.080pulled a lot of people together, and it was really interesting and striking to watch. And all those
00:30:54.740people you know getting moving towards a common goal like that but at the same time they weren't
00:31:00.000reaching I think too many of the new people or the people on the brink and that's who really
00:31:05.280must be reached now the people who aren't sure the undecideds there's always going to be 30%
00:31:10.340that never support a cause like this in a million years fair enough but there's a big piece that
00:31:15.720could consider it and we got to figure out how to reach out to them and and being in echo chambers
00:31:20.180won't do that. That's why, as Tanya mentioned, there could be some real unfair crap out of legacy
00:31:25.780media with that one example, for example. But at the same time, a lot of the outlets covered things
00:31:31.260fairly as well. Or sometimes people will see an unfair coverage from legacy media, but they know
00:31:35.560it's unfair and it still helps your group. So don't antagonize legacy media. Don't completely ignore
00:31:43.160them because you've got to reach everybody by every means you can. Whether we like it or not,
00:31:47.920There's a whole lot of people still get the bulk of their news from CBC or CTV and things like that.
00:31:53.420I'll just offer one of the tricks that, you know, happened in a sense with the issue I had going on with my work with a billboard down in Tabor and the battles going on there.
00:32:02.840But one of the outlets, Global, went down and managed to find in Tabor, Alberta, one of the most conservative towns in the whole province.
00:32:12.120Apparently, every person they approached did not like my billboard and felt the town was well justified in trying to have it removed.
00:32:19.140I was quite astounded. Wow. Boy, that town really hates it.
00:32:22.940CTV went out, on the other hand, spoke to a few people and found more mixed views.
00:32:27.140A few people saying, I don't agree with the guy's message, but it's OK to have a billboard.
00:32:30.560And they found a couple of people who said, yeah, I fully agree with that messaging and that billboard.
00:32:35.020That's called doing streeters and media does it all the time.
00:32:38.660It's one of the best ways you can take what looks to be a newscast and spin it to look like, well, to whatever aspect you want.
00:32:47.140I've got to wonder with the other coverage, how many people did they have to ask before they could find a few who really hated that sign
00:32:52.680and make sure that those were the only ones that made the coverage?
00:32:54.800You can never tell when you're watching the show, unfortunately.
00:43:31.880But this this coal petition that was done by that country singer, Lund, and he wants to ban coal mining on the Easter Slope.
00:43:39.680I don't agree with him. I don't at all. But he used the process properly and he got the requisite number of signatures, it sounds like.
00:43:47.740And it sounds like that the Smith government's now found a loophole. Well, it's too late.
00:43:50.900You haven't got it in on time and we're just not going to allow that one to go on the ballot this time around.
00:43:55.400Like, the spirit of the point of allowing people to initiate their own referenda has been completely screwed up in Alberta between two things.
00:44:03.620One, I think activist judges, and two, a provincial government that doesn't actually want citizens to bring about petitions on things that they don't want to face.