CORY MORGAN SHOW： Alberta’s union-initiated MLA recall stunt has collapsed
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Summary
In this episode of the Corey Morgan Show, Corey talks about the growing number of Recall Initiatives in Alberta, and how they are being used by union activists to bring down the Smith government. Corey talks to Sylvester from Stay Free Alberta, who is leading the Recall campaign against one of the most vulnerable MLAs, Dimitrios Nicolaitis.
Transcript
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As you can see over my shoulder, we've got somebody else in the new guy chair there.
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Let's see if he's biting his nails or something.
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He hasn't eaten any noodles or anything yet, but everybody gets their introduction to the
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Western Standard getting to sit behind me for one of these shows.
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So as you can see, for Jackson and you guys, it is a live show.
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Be sure you use that comment, scroll, send your ideas, thoughts my way.
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You know, just keep civil and try not to get on each other's case too badly.
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I've got for our return guests, I guess you could say we'll get it together this time.
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It's Sylvester from Stay Free Alberta on the petition for a referendum in Alberta.
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I mean, the town halls have just been overflowing.
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I've been going to them, but it's kind of strange.
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It's Stay Free and you've got a petition in certain areas and things.
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Well, let's get on something I've been looking forward to talking about, but I had to wait
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And that's direct democracy in Alberta and the recall legislation.
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So in the background, you know, enraged over the back to work order imposed on striking Alberta
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teachers and they were emboldened by the success of Thomas Lukasik's petition about nothing.
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Union activists felt they could capitalize on the ire and use Alberta's recall legislation
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Daniel Smith's party only holds a narrow majority, actually.
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And if as many as five seats were fully flipped over the NDP and ahead an inch, you would become
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They went after Calgary, Bo MLA, Dimitrios Nicolaitis.
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Nicolaitis is the Alberta education minister and he won the constituency by only a little more
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So if a by-election were held in Calgary, Bo, there'd be a chance that they could swing
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Now, legacy media and establishment pundits, they were overjoyed with this development.
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They report on the initiation of the recall process against Nicolaitis as if it was a true
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They laughed at how Daniel Smith's own recall legislation was being turned upon one of their
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Some speculated it might be the beginning of the end of the UCP government.
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And the recall applications, they spread further.
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Every few days, legacy media jubilantly reported that elections in Alberta had approved another
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Soon, 26 recall initiatives have been approved, representing nearly 30% of the seats in the
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Legacy media's hushed tones implying a government overthrow were becoming shouts from the rooftops.
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Surely Daniel Smith's government is going to be humiliated, hoisted by its own petard.
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Political scientists speculated Alberta would be heading to a spring election so Smith could
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avoid being brought down by all these recall initiatives.
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And then when UCP Minister Rebecca Schultz resigned from cabinet, headlines ensured to
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note that Schultz was one of the MLAs facing a recall initiative.
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Was she fleeing before the recall could happen?
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The deadline for the first recall is now less than a week away.
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The prime activist organizing a recall against Demetrius Nicolaitis was forced to admit that
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with months to work at it, she's only garnered 6,000 signatures on her petition.
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That leaves her 10,000 short of the number required to trigger a recall.
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With this kind of petition, there's usually about a 10% error rate in the signatures too.
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So her initiative is more likely closer to 11,600 signatures short of the mark.
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Nicolaitis' political career may face many challenges, but being recalled isn't one of
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So why though was it impossible for the petitioner to get 16,000 signatures in one constituency when
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Lukasik managed to get 400,000 of them across the province?
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Well, it's because recall legislation is written to ensure the initiative must remain local.
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Petitioners have to be registered and they got to live within the constituency.
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Outside money and workers can't be used on a recall initiative.
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Lukasik was able to utilize union and activist groups and concentrate his petitioning efforts
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The activists targeting Nicolaitis have to use local resources and they have to get only
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local people signing and she clearly couldn't gather enough of them.
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Anybody can make an online petition that can garner thousands of signatures in a short
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time, but to get real physical signatures in person with a name, address, phone number
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gathered by a registered petitioner is a whole different story.
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A hardworking petitioner working on an eight-hour day might get 100 signatures.
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To get 16,000 or more takes a large organization with a motivated electorate.
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And neither of those existed in Cowriebeau and it doesn't exist in any other constituencies.
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Look, all it takes to start an initiative is 500 bucks in an application formed to Elections
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The petitioning part though has stopped the initiatives in their tracks.
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The rest of the initiatives are in areas with even stronger support for the UCP than Calgary
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One of them is against Daniel Smith in Burke's Medicine Hat where she won with 66% of the vote.
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Another is in Highwood where the UCP candidate won with 69% of the vote.
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However, in a way it's good that Alberta's unions put the recall legislation to the test
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They prove that the bar is set high enough to stop frivolous recall efforts and the abuses
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But it's not set so high that it's impossible to initiate one.
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But it'll only have success in the most exceptional of circumstances and that's what it was supposed
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A local MLA will have had to have breached public trust so badly that a large majority of
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local electors feel they can't wait until the next election to fire their representative.
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And a lot of MLAs have ticked people off but they haven't.
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reached that bar yet and the electoral cycle will take care of it, I guess, in a year
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The upcoming year is going to be a historic one.
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We've got petitioning to invoke an independence referendum.
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And not necessarily the referendum, but the petitioning for the recall, or referendum anyways.
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So it's time to turn the page on the recall stunt.
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Pay close attention to real direct democracy in action though and it's sweeping the province
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I figured you were going to want to go on about this.
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Well, you guys lost your seventh straight playoff game.
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And for those who don't watch regularly, yes, I'm a Steelers fan.
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And you had to stay up till 2 a.m. to watch the game.
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Yes, because I had been at a speaking event up in Bentley while the game was on.
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So for a change, people might have noticed a gap of five hours of me no more on Twitter
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or anywhere on social media because I didn't want to find out the score.
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So I sat up that late to replay the game and see them mutilated at 32-6.
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Well, I have offered you a chance to jump on the Seahawks bandwagon and you turned me down.
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But my daughter's a 49ers fan, so I got to cheer for the 49ers.
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Well, maybe next week after we thrash the 49ers.
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What are we going to do about Jackson's mustache?
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That look, you know, it's kind of him, I guess.
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Maybe I'll have a chat with him after we're done with.
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Corey, we've got more details on that horrible, horrible attack on that woman in Edgemont in Calgary.
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She was showing her house off to a possible tenant and he attacked her and tried to strangle her to death.
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And it's a miracle this woman is alive and she fought back and was able to kill her attacker.
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And Calgary police say it's the most blatant case, the most obvious case of self-defense that they've ever seen.
00:08:19.060
And we're all on tenterhooks for Iran, waiting for Donald Trump to press the button.
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And it's also a race to save the life of that guy who's become the face of the rebels, who's due to be hung at some point today.
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Francois Legault resigned as premier of Quebec today.
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His party is doing terribly in the polls and would have been wiped out.
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And they're going to get a new leader in before the fall election.
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The government has been ordered to release all the files into the Kamloops Residential School alleged graves.
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You remember when the First Nation made that allegation, they got $12 million.
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One of the things they had to do was report on the progress that they were making.
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And the government has so far refused to hold it, refused to release it.
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And the Information Commissioner came out today and ordered it to be released.
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And Canada's former, this is not a good portion of Canada's history.
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When we fled from Afghanistan and left people behind, the former ambassador there has admitted for the first time it was a bit of a mess up.
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And David Duckworth, Calgary's top civil servant, is keeping his job.
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There were some media columnists who were demanding that he be fired and thought that it would happen.
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So he gets to stay on and lead us through our water woes.
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I mean, Mike Thomas there is watching everything City Hall and covering it excellently as usual.
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I mean, we thought this would be the first time finally somebody senior at City Hall in the administration is going to...
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Boy, they've got a stranglehold on the elected.
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If this doesn't get someone fired, nothing will.
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400 and some grand a year and probably more pensions than you can count.
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That he had to get mental health counseling for his staff.
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There were little ducklings under him when the report was released because, you know, it was saying naughty things about...
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Yeah, it was a scathing report by an independent group.
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And, you know, before he sent it out to his staff, Duckworth had crisis counselors on hold.
00:11:05.940
I mean, these people have tried to work a day in the real world and where you get real ramifications and they just wouldn't last.
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Well, I mean, I still hold optimism with Jeremy Farkas.
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To be fair, he's not really hard to the right or left.
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And we'll see what happens in Calgary City Hall.
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Well, I'll let you get back to your newsroom covering all that.
00:11:43.860
You'll be rubbing it in for our gentleman who has difficulty with this.
00:11:47.080
Yeah, so I'm going to go talk to him about his mustache right now.
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And yes, I mean, look, stories all over the place.
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I mean, from international, you know, things in Iran going on to locally in Calgary where, yeah, the water lines are falling apart yet again and everything else in between.
00:12:06.060
And new reporters, as you can see in the background.
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The reason we can do that is because you guys are subscribed.
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You can get to everything, get these stories as we're writing them.
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We can keep getting those reporters spreading out.
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So, again, thank you if you've subscribed already.
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Hopefully, we're going to have Mitch in pretty soon in a couple of minutes here.
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I mean, he's going to be talking about the independence movement.
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So, the referendum campaign in Alberta, well, the referendum itself isn't going yet.
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And that's what I'm looking forward to Mitch clarifying a bunch of stuff on.
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They need over 177,000 signatures on a petition.
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Real signatures, like I was talking about earlier with direct democracy.
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Has to be with an accredited petitioner there who registers with elections in Alberta.
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Not just somebody picking up a clipboard and going to the door.
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And as I said, about 10% of those will get thrown out.
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Now, this group, the Independence Bunch, APP, which now is Stay Free Alberta is the group doing it.
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One last weekend in Calgary, in South Calgary, and another one up in Bentley.
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And we've been seeing the reports from Fort McMurray, Innisfail, Biceker, Lincoln Hall, just everywhere.
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The same thing is happening at each and every one of them.
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People lined up literally in Queensland down the road for blocks wanting to sign the petition.
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And there was never a seat to be held for the speaking part.
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A lot of people at both events I went to, likewise in Bentley I was speaking, there was maybe a couple hundred people in the hall I was speaking to.
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But in the back, there was just an endless line of people coming and going, signing these petitions.
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And this is just the first couple of weeks these guys have got months going on.
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So, I mean, there's really something happening, you know, is the best way to put it.
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I just want to put a note out to, it looks like a commenter, James Tower, you know, threw seven bucks at us.
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You know, one of those things on YouTube, you can kind of toss a few dollars in to help and get some comments up there and things like that.
00:15:03.440
I mean, contrary to what some people might think, we aren't all actually all that rich and everything.
00:15:08.300
So, I appreciate that super chat going on there.
00:15:13.620
So, will we reach the, you know, the time lining for this petitioning and the rest?
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Four months of that, it's going to finish sometime in early May.
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Probably would take elections, Alberta, a month perhaps to process that stuff and get it up there so that it can be approved, presumably.
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And then the referendum would be held, I'm guessing, October.
00:15:43.520
So, nine months of solid independence talk going on in Alberta, of re-evaluating what our place is in the Federation.
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You know, polls have been coming out, different ones.
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And there's one group saying, this polling group saying there's 17% support for independence.
00:16:05.960
And another one, and these are both large pollsters, and the other one is saying 31%.
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You know, there's always going to be a little difference between pollsters and polls and things like that.
00:16:18.140
But a spread by that much is pretty outstanding.
00:16:28.080
But most of them have stayed around 30% for the most part in the last year and some, especially since the last federal election.
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Really brought people into realizing the futility of trying to change things within the Federation.
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That's a long way from the 60%, I think, that really needs to happen.
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And my guess would be that there's 30% that never are going to go for independence.
00:17:02.200
It would have to get incredibly bad before we're looking at 80% or 90% support.
00:17:12.240
One is, how are the campaigners doing over the course of this next six, seven months?
00:17:17.980
And, of course, what the federal government does to inflame people further within the province and, you know, bring about that support.
00:17:34.360
What's this about sanctioned venues for signatures?
00:17:36.320
I thought as long as you have an Elections Alberta badge, you could be a canvasser and collect signatures pretty much anywhere.
00:17:40.840
Yes, there's some of the things I was really hoping Mitch would show up for, and hopefully we'll get him very soon.
00:17:45.580
To clarify on, so let me tell you about how it works with official petitioning.
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I'm not a member of any group or anything else, but still as an Albertan.
00:18:00.180
That's the one who filed to get a referendum going.
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So, when you get involved in this, if you want to petition, you have to sign an NDA.
00:18:13.120
Some people were, that's a non-disclosure agreement.
00:18:17.840
Look, what'll happen is you're going to get a bunch of people's personal information.
00:18:20.540
You're asking them to sign a petition to give their name, address, phone number, and all that.
00:18:24.840
They don't want to suddenly find out that they were on a bunch of mailing lists or that their employer found out that they signed something.
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If their employer or not, that's all that's about.
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It's just saying when you take those signatures, they will only be used for the point of the referendum, nothing else.
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And then you go through, and I'm going to be going through one, a Zoom meeting with a training session.
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So, they're going to go over some things with me and every other person who signs just to be sure you know exactly what you got to do.
00:18:53.340
I mean, there's a mistake that gets made a lot.
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People get post office boxes on the signatures, for example, rather than a residential address.
00:19:03.400
So, I'm going a long way here to explain what's going on.
00:19:12.300
He's one of the larger, in a number of ways, proponents of the independence movement.
00:19:22.140
He's brought it a long ways to where it is, but he's very outspoken on social media.
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And he put out a tweet about events that Jason Levine, who's another independent media person, and he pulls people together and does things.
00:19:38.820
He's holding traveling meetings in bars just to talk about independence.
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And Rath got very upset with it because he likes to keep everything around Rath.
00:19:46.560
So, he put out a large tweet this morning saying, this is unsanctioned meetings, and you can't sign at these things, essentially, or things like that.
00:20:02.360
I mean, you can't hold a meeting claiming you're with State Free Alberta if you're not.
00:20:06.180
Nobody has been, aside from State Free Alberta, claiming to be State Free Alberta.
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Anybody with, as James is asking, with their badge can be a canvasser and collect signatures when you've been properly registered.
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You can have a little coffee meeting in your area.
00:20:25.320
What we don't want, of course, is anybody misrepresenting.
00:20:28.440
Nobody would want to be, you know, saying they can collect signatures when they can't.
00:20:36.180
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.
00:20:54.060
And I know there's a lot of nuts that will get a lot of trouble out there.
00:20:56.420
Look at the trouble they would have to go through.
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You'd have to sign up, put your personal information in, your ID, pretend, get all the way through the process, become accredited, get your badge.
00:21:09.640
Then you're going to have to take your own time going around door to door or whatever you're doing, getting all these signatures to throw away.
00:21:17.920
We're talking about a movement that's dealing in the hundreds of thousands of signatures.
00:21:22.100
So any nutcase who's really going to go to that much difficulty to sabotage it, the impact is going to be negligible, to say the least.
00:21:36.040
And if you're signing a petition, I guess I'll get that out there.
00:21:38.680
If somebody's bringing one to you, you will have, they will have a badge.
00:21:49.320
It's not something you can make easily at home or something like that.
00:21:52.360
They've been accredited to be able to garner these things and speak on behalf of that.
00:21:59.420
If you're worried about somebody disingenuously petitioning, well, make sure, ask for it.
00:22:04.700
If they aren't showing it, then certainly they should have those credentials with them while they're at it.
00:22:12.880
I know he did say he has to come in from his truck because he is running all over the place.
00:22:16.680
This man is tireless hitting meetings and speaking and doing all this stuff.
00:22:21.860
So I want to bring him in because I've been turning your ear for long enough.
00:22:38.580
Well, we might come back to Mitch in a couple of moments.
00:22:41.820
Maybe the coverage is a little bit limited there.
00:22:44.960
So, I mean, getting further with, I'll talk about what I've been seeing and what Mitch is doing.
00:22:51.160
I'm only guessing he's going to another meeting when he's dressed up like that.
00:23:01.160
This is something how they've really built this base that now is exploding today because the meetings they're holding now are just built upon from dozens and dozens.
00:23:09.840
Now, I think cumulatively hundreds of meetings they've held over the last few years.
00:23:15.420
And it's come to a head and now they're pulling it together.
00:23:17.600
And, of course, with that organization, they are just overflowing the halls.
00:23:22.300
And the thing that was also astounding in going out to those meetings wasn't just people wanting to come to sign the petitions, but people coming, wanting to volunteer.
00:23:32.940
They wanted to get out there and do the petitioning themselves.
00:23:41.220
I mean, I've been messing around, pushing for the independence movement for a long time.
00:23:46.980
I think we'll see if we can get Mitch one more time on audio and see if perhaps he's in a spot where we can pull it in.
00:24:22.200
I know you're on the move, so it's hard to get to a spot to get good coverage.
00:24:28.800
I guess I'll start with the first question, though.
00:24:30.500
I just wanted to ask, because that's where a lot of people are wondering, what's going on?
00:24:36.240
Why is this a new organization rather than what they've been accustomed to all this time and getting ready for the independence referendum?
00:24:49.320
One of these days we'll get Mitch and get it working right.
00:24:51.960
It's the technical issues that these guys work on the ground rather than digitally, which is, again, part of their strength in a lot of ways, where they can do face-to-face meetings, but not so much on the tech end of things.
00:25:04.480
So Stay Free Alberta, if you're looking to get involved with this, I'll get that out there, stayfreealberta.com.
00:25:09.480
Or as others, yes, sometimes jokingly or whatnot talk about it, it's a feminine product, people are making fun of it.
00:25:17.940
So what happened with the Alberta Prosperity Project?
00:25:25.260
where all of this began. I guess with the election, the referendum legislation, it has to be an
00:25:33.300
individual initiating it, not a group, something of that sort. I was hoping Mitch could expand on
00:25:37.460
that. And, uh, so they couldn't use the APP to actually initiate this thing. So the proponent
00:25:45.620
himself, if you look it up on the paperwork is Mitch Sylvester and the group is stayfreealberta.com.
00:25:51.800
Um, so it's, it's, it's the same thing. It's just different branding. They're working to get,
00:25:57.500
uh, uh, this sort of thing all registered properly. Um, it looks a little more clear there. I see
00:26:05.020
Mitch in the lobby. We'll give it one more try and see if we can get them. And, uh, okay. Are you
00:26:11.020
hearing me now there, Mitch? All right. No, that's not going to work. Okay. So, I mean, as you know,
00:26:18.400
guys, yes, the show really is live and, uh, it comes with, with most challenges. It will come
00:26:22.980
with a live show and everything. So, uh, all I can say is I suggest strongly guys go to
00:26:27.760
stayfreealberta.com, check it out. And, uh, you know, you get more details, straight up stuff on
00:26:34.960
how to support this. And, uh, hopefully, uh, you know, we'll see how the petitioning comes about.
00:26:40.460
Uh, I'm not going to be able to make it. There's a big event coming in Calgary at the BMO center
00:26:46.800
on January 26th. So for the Calgarian viewers, January 26th, uh, we want to see thousands of
00:26:56.760
people there. I mean, I, and again, I'm not saying we, in the sense that I'm part of that
00:26:59.960
group. I'm not, but I'm very supportive of it. I'm a guest speaker often for them,
00:27:03.280
but I'm an independent supporter and that's for sure. And this is the way to stop. They can't
00:27:13.480
stop us. They, you know, legacy media has been ignoring this. There's meetings with thousands
00:27:16.900
of people showing up all over the place. You're not seeing it in the news. You're not hearing about
00:27:19.960
it. They're not touching it. When thousands show up in Calgary, it's going to be hard to avoid. I was
00:27:25.480
talking to Jane the other day, uh, for people who knowing their, their Western independence history,
00:27:30.460
there's a kind of a famous picture in Alberta, but the Western Canada concept and Doug Christie
00:27:36.040
was leading it and he's standing there with his hands up like that. And I believe it was
00:27:40.560
the Jubilee auditorium in Calgary, which holds like maybe 3000 people. And that was a picture
00:27:46.680
that went all the way across the country. And that was the last really hard, big peak of
00:27:51.680
independence movements going on in Canada, particularly in the West. And, uh, uh, uh,
00:28:00.460
what we're talking about now, the BMO center could be two to three times as many people
00:28:06.040
just to catch their, uh, attention. Um, just, uh, I see, uh, sorry, our producer, John messaging
00:28:14.020
saying, I want to try calling Mitch on the phone. Maybe give it a crack. If you can get them clearly
00:28:17.740
on there, we might bring Mitch in just through audio on the phone. Cause I really, really want
00:28:21.360
to talk to him. So, uh, as I said, I won't be making it out to, uh, uh, that gathering coming
00:28:26.740
up because, uh, I will be, uh, actually popping out of a town as, uh, was mentioned a different
00:28:32.200
interview. I did taking my vacation for a little bit. I'll still be online and doing some stuff,
00:28:35.980
but I won't be able to get out to that itself. All right. Hello. All right. I hear Mitch on the
00:28:42.800
phone. Are you hearing me there, Mitch? I hear you perfectly. And I can see you and I can see
00:28:49.360
myself. I don't understand how this is not working, but let's do it this way. Yeah. Okay. Well, we got
00:28:54.180
you and I can hear you good. Now if we'll just do it through the phone with just audio,
00:28:57.100
that's that's perfect. So thank you very much. Uh, we've got you, uh, at a roadside there,
00:29:01.860
Mitch. Um, welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much for having me. Great. So I've
00:29:07.620
been kind of stumbling along. I think I know most of the basics, but I wanted to get right
00:29:11.060
to the source and ask you, cause people are still kind of a little confused and wonder what's
00:29:15.380
up. They want to, uh, uh, support things and get rolling. What's up with stay free Alberta.
00:29:20.820
Okay. So, you know, it's basically, we, we've kind of basically thought that Monday of next
00:29:27.780
week, everything would be a hundred percent flat out. We'd have canvassers, uh, everywhere.
00:29:32.740
We'd have signup sheets for everybody. Um, so you know what, that's going to happen. Uh,
00:29:38.140
we really believe that we're going to have, uh, all manner of locations all around the province
00:29:43.540
for people to sign up in place and up on our stay free Alberta.com website. So you can find
00:29:49.600
it there. Um, so you know what, another couple of three days and, uh, we'll be flat out and,
00:29:55.200
you know, we've been trying to lay the, the, the, basically the structure for this
00:29:59.600
so that once we get going, we can take all manner of, uh, signatures and, and, and drive
00:30:04.400
it forward without any further delays. Yeah. Well, and we should remind a lot of people,
00:30:08.720
I know everybody's eager and there's a bit of impatience and everything, but it kind of caught
00:30:13.040
you flat footed when suddenly they said, Hey, January 2nd, finally, here we go off to the races. And,
00:30:18.080
uh, you know, it takes a little time to get thousands of volunteers organized and moving.
00:30:22.480
I guess we've got to remind people we want to move fast, but there are a few months to work
00:30:26.960
on this. There's going to be time to, to get out there and get your name down.
00:30:30.800
Well, well, we got till May 6th and the other thing, the other thing that people have to
00:30:35.200
understand is that they kind of sprung that on us at, on, at Christmas, like the day before they
00:30:40.080
closed. And, and so what's happening is our people have had the anticipation and all of that
00:30:45.840
build building and building since then, but they didn't come back to work till
00:30:50.240
Monday of last week. So we've only actually been working with them for four or five days
00:30:54.960
and just getting clarity on what we actually can and cannot do, uh, you know, according to,
00:31:01.120
to bill 14 new rules to the citizens initiative act, uh, stuff that we had to get clear before,
00:31:06.960
you know, cause the fines are, are massive. Like if we break the rules, some of these fines are half a
00:31:11.360
million to a million dollars. So we want to be darn sure that, uh, you know, being a proponent
00:31:16.240
that I don't have to pay a million dollar bill or a half million dollar bill.
00:31:19.520
No, I understand your, your commitment to this, but that'd be going a little above and beyond.
00:31:23.760
Uh, part of it as well as, um, uh, I mean, I would imagine if they thought there was too
00:31:31.040
much untoward, they could reject the petition or parts of, or so on. So, I mean, it's very important
00:31:35.600
to keep everything above board and, and following the rules laid out. And, and we got answers from
00:31:42.000
them yesterday. So, so basically we're able to, you know, clear up some of the things that we can
00:31:48.160
do and cannot do. So in all fairness to them, they got back to us. We got an answer yesterday.
00:31:52.720
So right now the path is clear. We understand what we can do, what we cannot do. And, you know,
00:31:57.760
I'm going to exhale right now. I'll be there tonight. We have another event in red here tonight
00:32:01.760
as well. So we're going to be at both of those events. I'll be somewhere Friday as well.
00:32:06.640
And then, uh, next week we go flat out and we get going. And I heard your, your comments at the
00:32:12.160
introduction saying that our, our town halls have basically driven this. And I a hundred percent
00:32:16.880
agree with you. Oh yeah. This is going to be my 96th or 97th town hall on, on this particular topic
00:32:24.400
tonight. And, uh, we did a hundred, uh, Alberta pension, uh, town halls before that.
00:32:29.840
So, you know, we've been basically down 190 magnified town halls in the last two years.
00:32:37.200
Uh, so we've been busy, but as a consequence to that, what I believe we've done is we've built
00:32:42.240
a base and we're seeing it all over the place. That base is showing up and it's just fantastic
00:32:48.720
to, to, to see what's going on. It's exciting. Well, that's it almost a victim of your own success
00:32:52.960
because you built such a base and then everybody's ready to roll. And then it all hits at the same time
00:32:56.880
as soon as it got rolling. So it's going to take a little bit to streamline everything.
00:33:00.320
Yeah. Um, and don't worry, don't worry. We'll have lots of work for everybody.
00:33:04.800
Oh, I know you will. And there's no problem. Monday till the 6th of May, it's going to be flat out.
00:33:11.280
Yeah. So with the legislation, I just wanted a little more clarity and I see a couple of the
00:33:14.720
commenters asking the same thing. There's still just a bit of confusion from the last organization to
00:33:19.040
stayfreealberta.com. Just what, why are you the proponent, not the last organization? And where
00:33:24.880
should people be directing their, their efforts and so on?
00:33:28.640
So everything has to go through stayfreealberta.com. So, so Alberta Prosperity is an educational
00:33:35.200
society. They can't weigh in on, you know, on picking a side on this and, you know, quite frankly,
00:33:40.240
that we only have one side. So, I mean, we have to be very careful. We're, we're as partisan,
00:33:45.040
as definitely, we're very nonpartisan in our message, we think. Yeah. Because we think that
00:33:50.160
this is going to benefit all of Alberta. However, our, our problem right now is that we have to make
00:33:55.280
sure that we stay within the rules of elections, Alberta. And that's why we waited for clarity.
00:34:00.000
But, but now we're, we've built the structure from the, you know, from the bottom up. Uh, we're
00:34:06.160
basically going to involve all of our volunteers. Now, the point of getting the volunteers was to
00:34:10.400
getting to this point and then putting them all to us. Great.
00:34:13.280
That was the point of the whole. Yeah, no. And I just wanted
00:34:15.440
people to hear from the horse's mouth because they get worried when things change or whatever
00:34:18.640
else. Okay, guys, stay free. Alberta is the place to go. This is where Mitch is. This is where
00:34:23.600
the official referendum and, and signups and meetings and everything can be found. That's the
00:34:29.120
place. And this is where our volunteers are working. Mm-hmm. All right.
00:34:33.040
This is where our volunteers are working. And we're taking more volunteers all the time. So,
00:34:36.400
please sign up to be a canvasser. Yeah. That's, that's what we need you to do. Sign friends and
00:34:42.080
family. Uh, if everybody does that, we win. So, I mean, kind of looking a little ahead. So,
00:34:47.520
I mean, there's the big first step to go is getting the signatures, getting the petition done,
00:34:52.320
getting the referendum called, uh, presumably, you know, maybe in June or whenever, when they finally
00:34:58.000
say, okay, that's it. The numbers are in, we're ready to roll. We're scheduling a date. Would it still be
00:35:02.640
Stay Free Alberta that's going to be the campaigning mechanism, I guess, when it comes towards a
00:35:07.280
referendum? No, it's going to go back to Alberta Prosperity Project, I believe. Okay. Uh, you know,
00:35:12.880
and whoever, and that's going to be a full, the campaign is fully separate from this. Yeah. So,
00:35:18.720
so Stay Free, Stay Free is basically going to collect the signatures, get it to referendum,
00:35:25.120
or drop it on the Premier's desk, or Elections Alberta's desk, and, uh, hopefully have big enough
00:35:31.840
numbers to force them to, to, that there's no choice for them to call a referendum for independence
00:35:37.360
with a standalone question. Well, and I'm pretty confident you guys are going to do it, but still
00:35:41.600
nothing can be taken for granted. And it's still a huge task to, to be under undertaken. Uh, so I'm,
00:35:48.160
really appreciate you guys hitting the ground running. You, as you said, you're going to Red Deer.
00:35:51.200
I saw one of the commenters saying they're going to be coming up there. Uh, somebody else asking,
00:35:54.960
are we able to sign right up to May 6th? Uh, yeah. Oh yeah. We'll be able to sign. Well,
00:35:59.840
we have to have the petition in, uh, there a day or two in advance. Well, I would suggest,
00:36:05.040
you know what, let's, let's do a hard tap on May 1 so that we can organize all of our signatures and
00:36:10.240
get them, uh, and get them, you know, basically in the truck and accounted for, uh, before we get to
00:36:16.000
Elections Alberta with that. So I, I would say May 1, May 2, somewhere there, whatever. I don't know.
00:36:20.800
I don't know what, what the calendar looks like around those dates, but probably the last,
00:36:25.200
the last Friday of the week before we have to give all that stuff or send out all that stuff
00:36:30.400
to Elections Alberta will be the cutoff on one we can take. So I'm going to be an F bill tonight,
00:36:35.440
not Red Deer, but we have, but we, uh, stay free has a Red Deer event tonight as well.
00:36:40.000
Excellent. Okay. And I mean, again, reminding people, I mean, just because the deadline's that
00:36:45.040
far, the sooner somebody, uh, gets rolling on it, the better. I mean, we want to get it in so you
00:36:50.720
guys can, can file that, get it finished and keep reaching out to new people. So, yeah,
00:36:56.240
we'd like to get this done in the next month. Yeah. Like really. So that would give us three
00:37:00.560
months more to get more people. Well, absolutely. Get the, get the minimum done right away,
00:37:05.920
which I know we can do and what we're going to do and trying to do. And then after that,
00:37:10.080
just, uh, try and educate people on the benefits of free and independent Alberta.
00:37:15.040
Excellent. Well, um, I think you covered most of what I just kind of wanted to hit on. I mean,
00:37:19.920
I would suggest for a lot of people watch, uh, a lot of those meetings are being live streamed,
00:37:24.160
uh, or if they can get out to one themselves, get out to one, definitely get on and sign up if you
00:37:28.800
want to volunteer. So before I let you go, what else do you want to let people know before, uh,
00:37:33.440
before I let you get back on the road up to Eckville there? Well, you know what? I want you
00:37:37.600
to all understand that this is not going to get done without you. Uh, we're, we're an absolute grassroots
00:37:43.520
movement. I think the purest definition of it, and we've kind of been forced to do that based on the
00:37:49.280
fact of what's going on with media and what's going on in the world. So, so we're kind of back
00:37:54.960
to the old, old ways of neighbors talking to neighbors and friends talking to friends.
00:38:00.480
And so as a consequence to that, we need everybody to work, but I really believe we can win this that
00:38:05.280
way. And that's kind of been the path the whole way. So we're going to make sure that we get as
00:38:09.680
much social media or all that manner of stuff out there, but the real work is going to be done by
00:38:14.240
each and every individual. And that's the way it's designed that we've, we've been going through
00:38:19.440
this process now for, for a long, long time for basically two years. And everybody says to me,
00:38:25.040
well, when are we going to get a real strong leader, a real strong voice with us? And I said,
00:38:30.080
you don't understand this is about the people that leader will come and go. The people have to do it
00:38:37.040
themselves. And once they understand that, once they participate in our democracy,
00:38:41.520
then we will be very hard to unseat. Not only will we win, but then we'll pay attention to
00:38:46.320
what's going on and we'll be so much better off for it in the long run. So I believe that's the
00:38:51.120
path. That's my vision. And hopefully you'll all agree with that and participate.
00:38:56.400
Excellent. Well, you said it perfectly, Mitch, and I fully agree. You can't beat
00:38:59.680
facing somebody face to face and talking to them one on one. Social media is a great tool,
00:39:04.000
but winning hearts and minds takes talking to somebody in person. And that's what you guys have built
00:39:07.920
your model around. So, uh, thank you. I'll let you get back on the road. I appreciate your time
00:39:12.640
today. Uh, hopefully, but perhaps we'll talk again sometime, uh, a little farther down when
00:39:16.640
the referendum is getting closer to wrapping up or the petitioning and, uh, we'll, uh, report on your
00:39:22.080
success. I'd be happy to do that, Corey. Thanks for having me. Excellent. Thank you. Okay, guys. So one
00:39:27.760
more time, stay free, Alberta.com that's Mitch, uh, Sylvestre. And yeah, it's, it's, it's, you know,
00:39:34.000
everything's been changing on the dime. I saw somebody else pointing out saying that they'd
00:39:37.600
signed up to volunteer last Monday. When will they get, uh, the credentials? All I could say
00:39:41.040
is probably soon. You gotta remember there, they have been swamped. People are coming out in droves.
00:39:45.280
They want to help. They want to take part, but all of that has to be carefully, you know, uh, taken
00:39:50.320
care of and so on. So that information will get up to them and out to you. Uh, another person that
00:39:56.080
Colin had said he donated to the APP. Was it, uh, the wrong place or anything? I wouldn't say that. As,
00:40:02.560
as, as Mitch pointed out, the APP is still there. It's still important. It'll still be a huge part of
00:40:06.960
the campaign for the referendum. So donation, nothing there has been wasted. And the APP was
00:40:10.720
a whole big part of what built the base on why now this, this prairie fire of overloaded meetings
00:40:17.840
is sweeping across the province. So just keep watching because their website is going to get
00:40:22.400
more and more efficient. It's going to get, uh, uh, you know, more streamlined as these guys
00:40:27.680
scramble to get it done. When I did the Calgary meeting, uh, John Bolton was speaking of a
00:40:32.240
Chipiak and, and, uh, Dennis, uh, comma, and it was a really great thing. It was overloaded.
00:40:37.280
Uh, Heather was a volunteer there. Jeevan was a volunteer there. They were just overwhelmed. There
00:40:42.160
was just only so much you can do when thousands of people descend on you unexpectedly. So all I could
00:40:46.880
ask is give them some patience and, uh, it will come through and they want your help and they'll
00:40:51.680
certainly welcome your help. You know, being done from the bottom up, it really is, is so much stronger.
00:40:58.400
That's how something like this can't be derailed because it's too difficult. And when we're talking
00:41:05.120
about leaders and such, I, I see others, um, asking about that, you know, necessarily, um,
00:41:12.240
yeah, at this point it's, it's decentralized, but it gives a few targets, I guess, for the whole thing,
00:41:15.920
you know, to be taken down. It's, it's the people, uh, Steve, the first thing I was wondering about
00:41:20.960
this can be handed in earlier in a hundred days, 120 days, say it's 500,000 signatures, uh, by day
00:41:27.040
90. You know, I, I don't know. I don't know if they, I, if they let it run right to the deadline,
00:41:32.080
my view on it, and I'm not speaking for them, but my thoughts on it, as far as campaigning goes,
00:41:37.040
you know, I think they should run it right to the end and collect signatures every day,
00:41:40.720
as if you're a thousand signatures behind the whole time, get every possible one all the way through.
00:41:47.840
And because this is the basis of the campaign for the votes anyways, this is, you know, the,
00:41:53.200
the, the people who were volunteering to petition right now are presumably going to be the same
00:41:57.680
people volunteering to campaign when the referendum comes. What a great organizational opportunity.
00:42:02.080
This is the time to come together. This is the time to practice. This is the time to reach out.
00:42:05.920
So even if it turns out you go the whole four months and you came in with a million, well,
00:42:09.520
wouldn't that be awesome? That'll be pretty hard to stop, won't it? And you'll have had that
00:42:13.360
network of all these people working on the ground and pulling it together. We're making
00:42:17.760
history right now. And yes, I know I'm biased, not necessarily for the, you know, any individual
00:42:21.920
group or anything else, but I'm an independent supporter and I have been for a long, long time.
00:42:26.400
And all I can say is, you know, talking, as I was saying earlier, back all the way to Doug Christie
00:42:31.280
and the Western Canada concept in the mid eighties to today, I've never seen it like this. Never,
00:42:37.680
never anything even close history is being made. A referendum is going to be held, whether or not it's
00:42:44.000
one or not, that's, uh, still up, way up in the air that, but it's going to be held. We've never
00:42:48.960
even done that before. Some people had better start sitting up and paying attention. We'll see.
00:42:54.480
All right. Just a couple of stories I wanted to hit on the end. I mean, some good news and
00:42:57.760
good news from a tragedy. Uh, Dave mentioned that earlier, that horrible story. Some people are
00:43:02.560
hearing a 48 year old Shabazz Ahmed lured, uh, lured a 30 year old woman to a home in the community of
00:43:07.920
Edgemont. He was pretending to rent a place. He assaulted her brutally. She, she got broken bones,
00:43:12.960
scratches. I can't imagine. Cause the cops, as Dave said, it was the most clear cut case of
00:43:18.800
self-defense they'd ever dealt with. Uh, so yes, he died and yeah, I'm not going to weep for him.
00:43:23.360
You know, good riddance. Uh, he died. She defended herself and killed him somehow. I, you know,
00:43:28.240
there's not been details exactly how that happened after she took such a terrible beating, but for a
00:43:33.360
change, cause you know, in Canada and Alberta, it just seems usually, uh, they charge the person
00:43:38.400
defending themselves one time. They got it right. I hope she really recovers, uh, you know, fully as
00:43:44.000
much as she can. I can't imagine the terror and the trauma and the rest that's going on. But, uh,
00:43:48.960
in a sense, it's a good news story that some sick, uh, you know, violent, uh, murderer is now, um,
00:43:56.960
no longer on this planet and the goofballs in her, uh, well, and in this case, they weren't being
00:44:02.160
goofballs. Our law enforcement authorities said, no, we are definitely not going to charge her for
00:44:05.920
defending ourselves. So let's expand that further. I want to see castle laws and a great deal more
00:44:09.760
than that. But, uh, that was one story that has really made a lot of news people and realizing
00:44:15.120
now there's bigger issues as to, uh, why we've got crime issues going on in general.
00:44:20.160
Uh, coastal first nations, Mark Carney talking, speaking of why we've got to become independent.
00:44:24.800
Coastal first nations is a lobby group. In fact, they're foreign funded, you know, but the news media,
00:44:30.480
the CBC and Carney talk as if these are actually elected indigenous bands and they aren't.
00:44:35.200
Carney met with this lobby group on a pipeline to the west coast and two things happen. For one,
00:44:42.640
this lobby group said, we're not allowing a pipeline to the west coast. They have no authority to
00:44:48.640
disallow it whatsoever. Carney said, I won't put a pipeline to the west coast if they don't give
00:44:55.680
approval. So even if they don't have the authority, if the prime minister gives it to them. So guys,
00:44:59.920
if you're waiting, thinking the federal government is ever going to do the west any favors,
00:45:03.920
as long as you're giving false authority to foreign funded lobby groups, like the coastal
00:45:09.840
first nations, it isn't happening. That's why I'm an independent supporter. All right. I'm going to
00:45:14.400
close out, watch the pipeline tonight. I'm going to have a guest host in next week. Like I said,
00:45:18.240
I'm escaping for a little while and then I'm going to be doing some shows from out in the field.
00:45:21.680
Actually, it's going to be pretty fun. So keep tuning in guys. Thank you very much for tuning in
00:45:25.920
today. Thanks for the comments. Thanks for that super chat. We do appreciate that as well.
00:45:30.400
I'll see you all in two weeks. Tune in next week, though, to catch our guest host. That'll be a fun,
00:45:35.680
good show. And be sure to subscribe to The Standard. Thank you.