Western Standard - Independence, Health Care Pressure, and Recall Politics

00:00:00.000 hello everybody and welcome to the first episode of alberto legislature 101 my name is will vassar

00:00:16.080 i'm the alberto legislative reporter for the western standard and i'm excited to bring this

00:00:22.000 show to you it's called alberto legislature 101 because we are going to give you everything you

00:00:27.840 need to know about what's happening weekly at the Alberta Legislature. We're going to try and give

00:00:33.120 you everything at a base level so that you understand everything that's happening and then

00:00:38.540 you can go learn more if you so choose. Today we got a great episode. I'm going to share with you

00:00:43.960 my top three stories from what's happening this week at the Legislature and then as well we got

00:00:49.760 a great interview with Minister Demetrios Nicolaitis. He shares with us a little bit about

00:00:55.640 his hike he went on hiking Mount Kilimanjaro in honor of his sister as well as the goal to raise

00:01:02.320 funds for victims of domestic violence but first we'll get into it by sharing our top three stories

00:01:09.460 of the week and this is gonna be a weekly segment where I take the three biggest stories that I feel

00:01:15.040 like Albertans should learn the most about so that they can be educated and so here's this week's

00:01:22.360 three stories the first one is the battle going on right now over alberta independence and this

00:01:28.960 is an internal battle going out going on throughout the province but it's also going on in the

00:01:34.200 legislature as the ucp try and walk the line of being in favor of alberta staying within a united

00:01:44.000 canada at least that's the message they're trying to portray uh to albertans but they're also

00:01:49.800 leaving the door open for Alberta to have a referendum on Alberta independence. They believe

00:01:57.980 that Albertans have the right to be able to vote on whether or not Alberta should remain within

00:02:03.960 Canada. And to do that, Alberta or the UCP have kind of adopted a mantra of they're in favor of

00:02:11.720 a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada. They've had to adopt this because they're really

00:02:18.800 dealing with an internal party struggle of around half of the UCP base wants to support Alberta

00:02:27.340 independence and they're in favor of Alberta becoming their own country and the other half

00:02:31.340 are in favor of Alberta remaining in Canada and so the UCP are really having to play to both sides

00:02:38.320 and on the other side of it are the NDP where a lot of the supporters there are in favor of

00:02:44.960 Alberta remaining in Canada. They don't want independence for Alberta. And so they're

00:02:49.820 balancing this act and they're both really trying to play their cards the right way. The NDP are

00:02:56.080 challenging the UCP to really pick a side, declare one way or the other, what way are they going to

00:03:01.580 go? And to do that, they've formed a pledge, challenged all the UCPs to sign it, declaring

00:03:06.840 that they are in favor of staying within Canada. And then on the other side, the UCPs are sitting

00:03:15.800 there saying, no, we're not going to sign the pledge. This is just a big political stunt by

00:03:21.640 the NDP. They're trying to really draw attention away from their leader, Nahed Nenshi, who he's got

00:03:30.420 some issues going on over his history with struggles that have happened during his time

00:03:36.860 as Alberta or as Calgary's mayor. You can go look on the Western Standards site. There's a little

00:03:41.460 bit more about that there, but that's kind of the battle. The NDP are trying to challenge the UCPs

00:03:47.000 to pick a side and really do they want to support which half of their supporters? And the UCPs are

00:03:54.740 saying this is just a big political stunt by the NDP to distract attention away from their own

00:04:03.800 struggles. And so this is kind of the battle we're going to be dealing with as Alberta pushes towards

00:04:08.540 the potential for an independence referendum coming up here in the fall if they can get

00:04:14.200 enough signatures on the petition. We'll wait to see how that unfolds. The next thing to talk about

00:04:19.380 here in Alberta is the struggle going on with Alberta's emergency rooms and the crisis that's

00:04:26.220 kind of going on. Backstory on it is that Alberta's hospitals, the emergency rooms are dealing with

00:04:33.860 a struggle trying to keep up with the flow of patients going to the hospital right now.

00:04:40.080 Most of the hospitals, especially in Calgary and Edmonton, are operating at overcapacity right now.

00:04:45.940 And so there's really a lot of reasons going on about what is really causing this.

00:04:53.660 But the issue is the number of, there's some people that have died because of this overflow

00:05:02.560 of patients in the emergency rooms, in the hospitals, and the inability to keep up with it.

00:05:09.160 now the blame for it or the reason for this overflow that's kind of taking place the ucps

00:05:16.780 largely blamed it on a higher than expected flu season that's happened over recent months they've

00:05:26.580 said it's kind of calming down now but because of a large number of people that went to the hospital

00:05:32.380 during flu season, Alberta wasn't really able to keep up with it. And they also have talked about

00:05:40.060 a large number of individuals who are in the hospital, no longer needing hospital care

00:05:46.240 necessarily, but still needing care. But they're stuck in the hospitals right now because there's

00:05:50.480 not the care available for them in the communities. There's no community care facilities

00:05:55.480 space open for them. And so the UCP have made a commitment to try and build more hospitals,

00:06:02.520 build more beds, and also trying to build these community care facilities, but there's only so

00:06:08.920 much they can do in the short term. And on the other side of it, the NDP and doctors have argued

00:06:15.960 that there's been a lack of infrastructure and resources invested in Alberta's healthcare system

00:06:21.120 that's really coming to a head right now and causing this overload. As Alberta's population

00:06:27.240 has grew, funding and developments regarding Alberta's health care has really dropped and

00:06:34.400 that's what's causing a big part of the issue as well as a shortage on doctors in Alberta that's

00:06:40.940 causing this issue. And so this week what the NDP did is they put out a call listing three demands

00:06:48.980 for the UCPs to kind of meet. The first is for the Premier to step forward publicly and inform

00:06:56.380 Albertans and update them on what exactly is going on right now. Throughout the kind of previous

00:07:01.920 months that have been happening, there's been limited updates from Premier Smith or any of the

00:07:08.400 four ministers that oversee health. And NDP are arguing that Albertans deserve answers.

00:07:17.360 Albertans deserve to know what's taking place. So they've put out a demand that Premier Smith

00:07:21.920 step forward and have this public call. The next thing is they're having, or they're asking the

00:07:30.520 Premier to declare a state of emergency regarding the healthcare crisis and Alberta's emergency

00:07:37.060 rooms. Doctors have argued that doing this would give them the resources needed to kind of mitigate

00:07:43.480 some of the effects of this crisis. And conversely, on the other side, the UCPs have

00:07:48.700 argued that it's not necessary. We're not at the point where we need to declare a state of

00:07:54.780 emergency. That's not going to help solve the issue. The other thing that the NDPs are demanding

00:08:01.300 is they are calling for Alberta to institute a central command over Alberta health care,

00:08:08.540 especially during this crisis right now. Previously in 2025, Alberta kind of dissolved

00:08:16.580 what was one ministry overseeing Alberta Health and divided it up in between four ministries.

00:08:22.480 And what this has done, according to some of the doctors, is it's created some confusion

00:08:26.720 about who exactly is overseeing specific regions of health. It's created mis-messaging over

00:08:34.640 who's doing what. And so the NDP are arguing that the UCP need to walk back the decision and really

00:08:41.800 get one decision maker, one point of contact, so everyone can really organize themselves in

00:08:48.760 handling this. And the third thing they're demanding is that they reconvene the Alberta

00:08:53.140 legislature so that a public debate can take place, so that the issue can be addressed publicly

00:09:01.580 in front of Albertans. Right now, we're a few weeks away from the fall session of the legislature

00:09:07.800 really beginning here. So we're kind of in this waiting period, but the NDP are calling on

00:09:13.420 the UCP to start this early. Call the legislature together and let's debate it publicly.

00:09:20.500 Right now, there's been no response from the UCP government since this most recent call this week.

00:09:26.460 So we'll see what comes of it. But that's something that you're going to have to keep an

00:09:30.680 eye on in the coming weeks to see how this all unfolds and as Alberta tries to really mitigate

00:09:35.080 the effects of this healthcare crisis that is struggling and really threatening the lives of

00:09:41.340 many Albertans. The third and final story happening in Alberta right now is the continued evolution

00:09:47.380 of Alberta's recall war. Now I'll give you a brief synopsis of what recall is. Basically in Alberta

00:09:56.180 individuals have the ability to recall their direct elected official if the individual if

00:10:03.860 the official is not fulfilling their duties now not fulfilling their duties is a very loose term

00:10:11.460 there's not a lot of directions for what that means and so it's very loose but what they do

00:10:20.000 is they file for a recall, they then get a petition, and they need to get 60% or signatures

00:10:26.800 equal to 60% of the number of votes cast in that area during the most previous election.

00:10:32.200 And if they can do that, they then trigger a by-election for the elected official. And that's

00:10:38.320 a really simplified version. Go read more on the Elections Alberta website. It explains it a whole

00:10:44.680 lot better but right now in alberta we're under a situation over the last three months where there

00:10:50.600 have been 26 recall petitions filed 24 of them have been against ucp mlas and so there's been

00:11:00.120 a lot of suspicious activity going on with it people wondering like why is there so many against

00:11:06.440 UCP MLAs, 24 of the 26 are against UCP people, and just two are against NDP leaders. Now there's

00:11:14.840 a lot kind of happening behind the scenes of it. I encourage you this week, I released an article

00:11:20.200 on a group named AB Resistance. It outlines how they plan to weaponize the recall act to target

00:11:27.380 six UCP MLAs and really dethrone the UCP government. I encourage you to go read that

00:11:33.360 article because it really helps tie in why there's so much going on right now with the recalls and

00:11:39.520 a little bit of those suspicions and kind of theories about why only the UCPs. Is this a

00:11:46.240 targeted attack? Go read it. It's on the Western Standard website. I take the time and do it. I

00:11:51.560 would really appreciate it. But this week, the second recall petition got submitted and it failed.

00:11:58.440 It was unsuccessful in getting the number of signatures required to trigger the by-election.

00:12:06.500 And now this becomes the second recall petition to fail.

00:12:10.340 The one submitted this week was the recall campaign against MLA Angela Pitt.

00:12:16.060 She's in Airdrie, MLA.

00:12:18.260 And the first petition, this failed a few weeks ago, was the petition against Education Minister

00:12:23.360 Demetrios Nicolaitis, who we are going to talk to in a few minutes, but not connected

00:12:27.340 to recall.

00:12:28.440 Now, the Recall Nicolaitis petition failed and it got just 41% of the required number of signatures, which also equaled just 24.3% of the votes cast in the most recent election.

00:12:42.720 So really, 24.3% of the people that voted in the most recent election agreed at this point that they want to recall their Demetrios Nicolaitis.

00:12:53.460 Conversely, this week we had the Recall Angela Pick campaign get submitted and that one ended

00:13:00.600 with just 14.6% of the signatures needed to trigger a by-election.

00:13:06.840 So it was well, well short of receiving the number of signatures needed to trigger a by-election.

00:13:15.860 And then it also received just 9% of the signatures or of the votes cast in the 2023 election.

00:13:26.180 And so as we can kind of see here, not only are these petitions falling short, they're

00:13:30.580 falling well short right now of triggering these elections, especially against UCP MLAs.

00:13:37.680 But there's 22 remaining.

00:13:38.940 We'll see how the rest play out, but it's not looking well right now for these recall

00:13:43.360 petitions.

00:13:44.560 up next for recall petitions. Looking ahead, we have the Recall Nolan Dick campaign. He's a UCP

00:13:52.960 MLA for Grand Prairie. That's going to be submitted the petition on February 19th. So in a couple

00:13:59.800 weeks here, that'll get submitted. And then the next after that, there's a collection of six

00:14:04.620 petitions that'll be submitted on February 2nd. So we'll get a big load of them coming in at that

00:14:10.260 time so you can look forward to that but with that those are our three stories of from this week

00:14:16.880 those are the kind of three talking points I know I went a little more in depth and it's a little

00:14:21.300 longer in this video I'm going to try and keep it shorter in future ones but I felt that it was

00:14:25.840 really important to try and give you guys at least a basic backstory on these things since it is our

00:14:31.360 first episode and if you are new to try and keep up on what's happening you're not necessarily

00:14:37.300 going to know the backstory enough to understand what's happening now. So I tried to get you that

00:14:42.360 information. But with that, we're going to jump into our interview with Minister Nicolaitis. So

00:14:49.380 I'm going to throw it to myself. This interview was recorded yesterday. I hope you enjoy our

00:14:55.120 interview with Minister Nicolaitis. Hey, everyone, and welcome to this interview. Today, we have

00:15:00.220 Minister Demetrios Nicolaitis. Minister Nicolaitis is overseeing the Ministry of Education and

00:15:07.940 Child Care, which he has served in since 2023. He is also the MLA for Calgary Bow, and he got

00:15:15.700 elected to that position in 2019. And he did something really interesting this last month.

00:15:22.360 He hiked Mount Kilimanjaro, and I'm not going to spoil too much of it for you guys and a little

00:15:28.160 bit about his journey, but he was able to do it to help victims of domestic violence. And

00:15:35.100 so really excited for him to be able to share that story with you guys. And with that, I'll

00:15:40.140 invite Mr. Nicolaitis to join us and we'll get going with that. Mr. Nicolaitis, thank you for

00:15:47.800 joining us here with this interview. Many Albertans are aware of the hike that you did,

00:15:53.380 hiking Mount Kilimanjaro. But for those who maybe aren't aware, why don't you talk a little bit

00:16:00.300 about what exactly you did and give us a brief recap. Yeah, I'd be happy to. About two years ago,

00:16:09.900 my sister became the victim of domestic violence. And, you know, over the course of the past two

00:16:18.580 years, I had thought about different ways that I could work to keep my sister's memory alive,

00:16:28.560 honor her legacy, and also contribute some effort towards combating domestic violence.

00:16:37.160 And the idea was born in collaboration with some friends and colleagues to coordinate our efforts

00:16:46.320 and establish a target of summiting Mount Kilimanjaro

00:16:51.440 and, of course, using that journey as an opportunity

00:16:54.540 to encourage individuals to donate to our efforts.

00:17:00.520 We have partnered with Fear Is Not Love,

00:17:03.920 formerly the Calgary Women's Shelter,

00:17:06.400 of course, right here in Calgary.

00:17:08.480 And we wanted to use the effort to raise awareness,

00:17:12.240 raise funds that we could direct to the Calgary Women's Shelter

00:17:15.840 and help them to support more victims of domestic violence.

00:17:20.200 And we were successful in both our fundraising efforts and with our climb.

00:17:26.880 And so I was really happy that we were able to hopefully turn something

00:17:32.040 that has been so tragic to our family to something that will help benefit

00:17:38.340 other people in a meaningful way.

00:17:40.260 um so we'll talk a little bit more about the actual hike in a minute but we'll talk a little

00:17:47.460 more about the non-profit aspect of it and you mentioned the um money that you guys raised for

00:17:55.240 fears not love and how you guys were successful in that can you talk a little bit about um what

00:18:01.900 you guys were able to raise and then kind of what that what those proceeds were going to go to

00:18:05.980 specifically? Yeah, well, when I decided to kind of start this whole journey, I said that,

00:18:14.220 you know, there's a lot that happens in the domestic violence space. I'm no expert. I don't

00:18:19.360 know the nuances. And I felt that it would be best to reach out and partner with an organization who

00:18:25.020 knew this space best and who knew how we could direct our fundraising efforts and activity. And

00:18:31.000 And so I met with a couple of different organizations, landing on an agreement with Fear Is Not Love here in Calgary.

00:18:38.960 And I asked them what would be the most appropriate use of our fundraising efforts.

00:18:45.780 And we talked a little bit about personal and home security.

00:18:49.200 We talked about survivors of domestic violence looking to install doorbell cams, home security systems.

00:18:56.680 And even in lots of circumstances, as per their experience, a lot of individuals will look for wearable personal security devices.

00:19:07.420 So things like necklaces, bracelets, and things of that nature that are connected in with security monitoring companies.

00:19:15.280 And just by clicking a button on a pendant or necklace or bracelet, it immediately notifies a security monitoring company who reaches out to see if everything's okay.

00:19:24.040 And so that was the preliminary idea. We're probably going to continue to go in that direction. But as soon as I heard the idea, for me, it resonated. I know as my sister was going through her divorce, she was installing doorbell cameras and other things of that nature. So it resonated for me.

00:19:43.160 At the end of the day, we were able to raise just over $300,000, and we will be creating a new program over the course of the next couple of months in partnership with Fear Is Not Love to help achieve some of the objectives and goals that I mentioned a moment ago.

00:20:00.500 So I'm really excited to see how this new program is going to develop and how many people it can potentially help and support.

00:20:07.320 and you answered it a little bit there at the end but for individuals who are just seeing this video

00:20:13.620 and learning a little bit about uh the work that you guys were striving to do how they can get

00:20:18.480 involved um if they want to donate some proceeds towards helping those victims well we we called

00:20:26.220 our journey to hike Mount Kilimanjaro Melanie's ascent and so the the easiest way that someone

00:20:33.840 can contribute or become a little bit more involved is just to visit melaniesascent.ca

00:20:38.840 and the information is there. Of course, most of the information I was extremely outdated

00:20:44.300 because it was all about our efforts to hike Mount Kilimanjaro. I'm sure that that will

00:20:49.820 morph into something different as we finalize the development of this new program with Fear

00:20:56.680 is not love, but that's the best way that someone can get more involved or contribute. And again,

00:21:04.320 in partnering with Fear is Not Love, we wanted to do that so that A, there was a reputable charity

00:21:10.840 behind our efforts. We didn't want to create a new charity, have to go through all of the paperwork

00:21:17.760 and perhaps some of the legitimacy that might be surrounding it. And we felt that partnering with

00:21:23.840 an established and well-known charity would help to boost our efforts, but also help to ensure

00:21:29.920 everyone's getting their appropriate charitable tax receipts. And all of that is occurring without

00:21:36.300 any kind of issue. Perfect. And we'll shift gears here a little bit. We'll talk about the

00:21:43.460 actual hike itself. And so I want to ask about getting into hiking. What made you

00:21:53.600 you mentioned wanting to do something to honor your sister and what kind of got you to the point

00:22:00.500 of hiking was going to be that decision or was the best way to do it? Yeah, it's a little bit

00:22:06.940 of a story. So prior to my sister passing, I was working on a bucket list. And one of the things

00:22:14.780 that I put on my bucket list was, was hike a mountain, you know, summit a mountain. I had

00:22:20.380 never done any kind of hiking or never done anything like that and i actually recall sharing

00:22:25.200 that with my sister and she just kind of laughed at me and said like why would you want to do

00:22:29.120 something like that like what's like there's there's no reason there's no point uh in her

00:22:36.580 mind it didn't make sense and she didn't really understand it after she passed you know a lot of

00:22:42.640 that, of course, got put on the wayside. But a few weeks, maybe even a couple of months after she

00:22:50.100 passed, a friend reached out to me and said to me that he was quite sure that I was going through a

00:22:57.640 very difficult time, which indeed I was. And he wanted to take me out on a hike to help me clear

00:23:04.180 my mind a little bit. And so he came and picked me up and we drove out to Kananaskis. And it was

00:23:10.080 the first time I had ever done any kind of hiking. And it was about, you know, 5 a.m. and we're

00:23:15.900 working our way through the darkness in Kananaskis and reach the summit of South Lawson Peak at

00:23:23.320 sunrise. And that's where things kind of clicked for me. I said, you know what, maybe I will

00:23:27.980 continue with that with that bucket list idea. But as my sister had always mentioned that

00:23:32.520 there needs to be a point, I said, well, maybe this will be the point. And maybe I'll do it in

00:23:38.460 in her honor and her name and use it as a way to to fundraise so uh since then um i continued hiking

00:23:47.180 we um and began building a little bit of a team we summited uh 11 different peaks along the way

00:23:55.420 including mount elbert in colorado which is the highest point in the rockies and of course

00:24:00.380 culminating a couple of weeks ago with mount kilimanjaro in tanzania and that i like that

00:24:07.580 story and the reason why um part of the reason i asked re a big hiker um before this is so i

00:24:14.700 interviewed mr lowen right before you guys went on the hike and i asked him if he was a big hiker

00:24:19.820 before it and his words to me were that he wasn't a hiker in the natural sense but he uh did a lot

00:24:27.260 of hiking while hunting and i chuckled to myself and thought man did you not pick the best starter

00:24:33.660 hike for for this one so yeah it's very true he does of course uh he spends a lot of time in the

00:24:41.420 outdoors and had you know previously in his former occupation as a as an outfitter but yeah he hadn't

00:24:47.480 done a lot of um hiking and um uh and and um and mountain climbing so it was a new experience for

00:24:56.360 him but but he just sailed through it he did incredibly well uh of course the entire team

00:25:00.900 was able to summit successfully. We had an amazing team. There were 10 other individuals

00:25:05.220 that joined me, including some friends, some neighbors, acquaintances, a friend of my sister's

00:25:12.980 as well. So it was an emotional journey as it was a physical and challenging journey. But again,

00:25:21.400 in the end, I was so happy that we were able to be so successful in our fundraising efforts.

00:25:27.340 We had initially established a target of $100,000, and so we've obviously just blown through that to a level that I never would have expected.

00:25:37.000 And I'm so grateful for all the people who have donated, shared our work, and of course, those 10 other individuals, including Minister Lowen, who joined me on this epic adventure.

00:25:47.820 that's awesome and one of the things that he mentioned was uh the hike the goal or it wouldn't

00:25:55.980 have been necessarily um unsuccessful if you didn't reach the top the goal and what was going

00:26:02.520 to be success was the raising awareness for um victims of domestic violence and that proceeds

00:26:11.080 that was the real goal in the success and i really sense that sentiment from you as well

00:26:15.940 Um, something I want to ask is the training process of getting ready for this hike in the buildup process. What was that like trying to balance it, especially in the closing months, having to balance, I'm getting ready to hike Mount Kilimanjaro, but also serving as the minister of education during a, we'll call it a busy fall session for you with everything.

00:26:39.800 yeah it was um so of course in in the months uh preceding you know the hike you know seven eight

00:26:49.840 nine months out you don't feel a lot of urgency of course um but we we prepared by by uh just doing

00:26:57.700 a lot of hiking of course so we we had we were of the opinion that the best way to prepare for a

00:27:02.400 hike is is to just do more hikes so we we did a lot and we're so blessed of course to have the

00:27:08.720 Rocky Mountains right in our backyard. And so, as I mentioned, we summited nine different peaks

00:27:14.760 along the way and did a lot of hiking in preparation. But of course, a lot of other

00:27:19.320 physical activity at the gym, you know, running on the Stairmaster or swimming or things of that

00:27:26.780 nature. However, you're absolutely right. Coming into the final months, I think, became much more

00:27:31.780 stressful because the clock is really ticking and your time is running out. And being in the

00:27:39.840 legislature as we were in November and in December, certainly a heavy workload. I just

00:27:45.660 did everything I could to find time to make sure that I was engaging in some kind of physical

00:27:53.460 activity. Usually that meant getting to the gym in the basement of the legislature at 5 a.m.

00:27:59.640 or often a couple of times minister lowen and i would find each other in the legislature in between

00:28:07.140 you know votes or in between meetings and we would just go up and down the the five flights

00:28:12.380 of stairs there in the building a few times so just just finding any kind of opportunity that

00:28:17.280 we could but carving out some early mornings was was definitely my preferred option that's that's

00:28:23.700 funny that's awesome to hear because it's something you wouldn't necessarily think about for a lot of

00:28:27.340 people as they're preparing to hike a mountain um I know we're running short on time so I'll ask you

00:28:33.020 this one quickly what was the most challenging moment on that hike and then also what was the

00:28:39.620 most successful moment or the most gratifying moment on that hike

00:28:44.480 I I think um the answer to both of those is the same thing um I think the most challenging part

00:28:54.580 was summit night. So we had woken up at around 10.30 p.m. and had a short breakfast and prepared

00:29:05.640 to begin our summit attempt at around 11.30. And it was scheduled to take approximately six to

00:29:13.220 seven hours. So through all of the early morning hours in the middle of the dark, hiking up,

00:29:21.820 getting, you know, every step is getting more difficult because you start at 4,600 meters and

00:29:27.260 then, you know, pretty soon you're at 5,000, then you're at 5,200 meters. And of course, just

00:29:32.500 continuing to increase. So the further you got, the more difficult it became

00:29:36.740 in terms of oxygen level and trying to catch your breath. But that was also the most

00:29:44.520 inspiring moment, reaching the summit, standing on the crater of this dormant volcano, the highest

00:29:53.460 point in Africa, 19,341 feet, and seeing the sunrise was definitely inspiring, therapeutic,

00:30:06.000 and I think helped to bring all of our efforts to a close,

00:30:12.000 both on the awareness and the fundraising side as well.

00:30:16.500 And then the last one here, kind of just bring everything full circle.

00:30:21.960 When you're at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro,

00:30:26.280 everything that kind of built up to it,

00:30:28.680 all the meaning behind the hike and what you were trying to accomplish,

00:30:32.200 what were some of those thoughts going through your head,

00:30:34.540 especially thinking about the motivation behind it,

00:30:39.160 wanting to honor your sister through the hike?

00:30:43.340 Well, it was very emotional.

00:30:47.020 Once we saw the sign that's established at Uhuru Peak,

00:30:57.120 which is the exact peak of the mountain,

00:31:00.500 um it it was just um incredibly emotional um there were just getting emotional thinking about

00:31:10.880 it again there were lots of tears um there were uh you know lots of hugs um and so it was um

00:31:20.140 a very very emotional uh a very emotional but rewarding time as well

00:31:26.340 Perfect. Thank you, Minister. And we'll give you one more chance here. Just a quick plug for you guys' efforts and how individuals can get involved again if they want to.

00:31:37.140 yeah absolutely again the the details of of our hike and and links to donate and all of

00:31:47.120 and plans for the proceeds for the dollars that we raise can all be found at melanie's ascent.ca

00:31:56.480 and as we now transition to putting these funds into and developing a new program

00:32:05.800 program will continue to provide updates through that website about what this new program looks

00:32:11.940 like, how individuals will be able to access it, and how it'll hopefully help people who need it

00:32:18.480 the most. But through the website, melaniesascent.ca is the best way for anyone to learn more and stay

00:32:25.160 connected. Amazing. Thank you, Minister, for taking the time to join us today to share a little bit

00:32:29.620 about that journey that you went on and your guys' efforts. I appreciate your time.

00:32:34.760 No worries. Thanks so much. My pleasure.

00:32:40.000 Perfect. And that was Minister Demetrios Nikolaitis taking the time today to meet with us to discuss a little bit about his journey hiking Mount Kilimanjaro and trying to honor his sister through that journey and raise funds to help victims of domestic violence.

00:32:58.680 And again, you can help those victims, like he said, and donate proceeds through melanesascent.ca.

00:33:07.580 And Fear Is Not Love is the nonprofit that they work through to help those victims.

00:33:12.600 And we appreciate Minister Nicoletti's time to share that emotional story with us today.

00:33:18.320 All right, that's going to about do it for today's episode of Alberta Legislature 101.

00:33:23.500 Thank you to Minister Nicolettis for taking the time to do an interview with us today

00:33:28.120 and talk a little bit about his journey he went through hiking Mount Kilimanjaro in honor

00:33:32.440 of his sister and the funds he was able to raise for victims of domestic violence.

00:33:39.080 As for this video and our YouTube channel, if you're not already subscribed, please do

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00:34:01.800 our great staff here at the western standard trying to keep you informed on what's happening

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00:34:33.320 on Alberta Legislature 101.

Western Standard - February 11, 2026

Independence, Health Care Pressure, and Recall Politics

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