Thomas Lukaszuk’s “Captain Canada” Role Backfires in Alberta Flag Controversy ｜ The Pipeline
Episode Stats
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Summary
Join us as we take a deep dive into the scandal surrounding the removal of the Alberta flag and its removal from display in our province. We discuss the origins of the flag, who is responsible for it, and why it was removed in the first place.
Transcript
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we started this show is you talking about one of my least favorite politicians or wannabe politicians
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thomas lukazik i don't care how you feel about federalism i love federalism on how it's actually
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supposed to be constructed but the fact that we have an individual that's trying to say that the
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alberta flag is a negative thing is i think completely distasteful and something that our
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viewers should be hearing more about to to really educate themselves on what that means for
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unity and for our province yeah all right we're transitioning beautifully uh corey it was
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actually your tweet that uh brought this to my attention uh you found uh okay so just people
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know both people don't know who this guy is i'm thinking i don't know he was the first politician
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at the legislature i worked for oh yeah the first politician i worked for him sorry you worked for
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him yeah when he was the minister of education my first job at the legislature so it's a whole
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yeah thank god you found jesus all right um well okay so just so people know most people don't know
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who this guy is he uh i guess he was a progressive conservative mla uh when allison redford comes to
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power uh wins in 2012 she makes him deputy premier uh with no other portfolio can we just mention that
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he is the deputy premier with no other portfolio basically giving someone a make-believe job so
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they'd be quiet yeah yeah generally when i was there i can say it yeah when you see a leader a deputy
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leader of a party without a portfolio it means uh they're probably not very good normally um so uh but
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anyway this he fell out of that office with al redford's collapse and you know you have like
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a twenty thousand dollar phone bill or something always on vacation that he put the taxpayers and
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so he was out he lost his seat in 2015 when the ndp came in uh and i don't know if he's had a job since
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i think he's just been on twitter uh i don't know how he's been paying his bills maybe cfc makes a lot
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i don't know i don't know but i'm not aware of he's a kept man that's his business yeah uh but as far as
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i know he's just been tweeting for the last decade or so uh but he is uh fashioned himself
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uh captain canada here he is um uh yeah so he was up to something you found it we've done a bunch
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on it since uh just but just tell people exactly what happened yeah and to be fair to lucasic and
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i find him as odious as most of us here do uh it wasn't him directly who who decided it was a good
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idea to crap on alberta's flag it was one of his followers on his facebook group for now i guess
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i gotta give some more backstory lucasic is trying a counter petition to the independence movement
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to hold a fake referendum which would just say we're all happy we're staying canada which doesn't
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change anything it's like a trolling move they have a book that they call or a facebook page they
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called forever canadian where they were organizing and gathering other members to push this petition and
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get it going and i just checked it out and i scrolled my way down i guess morbid curiosity and
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i found this posting from one of their supporters who had put a picture up on that group days before
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saying yeah i'd found this alberta flag hanging in a safely and medicine hat and i control i complained
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to the western managers and they pulled it down and we got to stop you know getting we got to get
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these symbols torn down of this separatism and this terrible things at the alberta flag part of why i
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lay this on lucasic's feet is hey if you're going to head the movement you wear what your supporters
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do and you control their communications on a page that you is representing you i mean you can't control
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this one dingbat but okay this wasn't what he has a good stuff i know i have thought he was uh he was
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pushing no no so but if he'd done that five days before by then somebody should have said you know
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we might want to pull that off there before some clown like cory morgan spots it and throws it out on x
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and completely embarrasses you this went bad to the point that they shut down that facebook page
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lucasic has reopened his old campaign page from 2014 to use as a new facebook hub to try and rejuvenate
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because you don't attack the symbol of a province i mean symbols are important they're emotionally
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they're attached to people you can attack the independence movement you can attack the individuals
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but when you start besmirching the flag of alberta that had the exact opposite effect of what they
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were looking to do but it does show the mindset of the following because it wasn't just this gentleman
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who did that to safely which by the way say if we put it right back up once the backlash hit them
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i think they just wanted to sell groceries they didn't want to get in the middle of them yes it was
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just a flag uh but it was all the other people commenting below gee where do i contact my local
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safely i better do this for other businesses like that also started to show and that's why they had to get
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rid of that facebook page because it's not just one nut it's lucasic's gang of little elbows up
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minions started going after the alberta flag and uh they actually had to crash their whole page to
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get out of the mess they stepped in it says a lot about how well organized his little movement is too
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uh erica um okay so lucasic i guess wasn't behind the campaign itself to remove alberta flags so i
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if i miss uh yeah no i i thought the same but that was because i read this but i but but it is it is
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his organization and i i i half agree with you cory that you have to wear what your supporters do
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i have don't i mean like anyone who's ever been a part of a big movement or in a political party
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knows you've always got some nutters but if someone goes particularly far off the reserve you've got
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to make the point that no that guy doesn't represent us i i think that's fair and you don't have to do it
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for every little who says something stupid but if you've got something and you've left it up there
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and your people are clearly ginned up and excited about it no you have to wear that if you if you're
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not going to condemn it but i i okay i'm coming back to you because i didn't know you worked for
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lucasic but uh when i was discussing this learning so much yeah when i was discussing this with uh
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nigel and cory this morning when we're figuring out what we're going to talk about i i thought isn't
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it incredible that thomas lucasic is the face of the federalist cause here and i thought you know if i
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was running like the an alberta counterintelligence agency like daniel smith created the alberta cia
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and i was in charge of it or something and i got to do all sorts of subversive counterintelligence
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things i would have planted thomas lucasic as as like the boss of the federalist side if i could have
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picked like which greasy unarticulate inarticulate uh disreputable guy can i get to lead the other
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side so it's sort of discredit that side i've been like ding ding ding thomas lucasic let's that's the
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guy we want how in the hell have the federalist side seemingly accepted thomas lucasic as their captain
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canada here well i think he's been positioning himself by seeking a job for the last decade of
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becoming very much a you know distancing himself from what he once was which was a red tory to a
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pure red liberal um and so he has been very vocal hated jason kenny like when they were both uh ministers
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they fought um very publicly as i think many might remember he didn't like daniel smith ever so this
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was a great opportunity to give someone that wanted it a platform now i will say thomas worked really
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hard like he was a very hard-working mla very good to his constituents so ideologically i disagree with
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everything that he said um but he he he is a hard worker so i think from the left they're like well
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this is a guy that will actually roll up their sleeves and pound pavement and be loud about it
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um and and you know not being born and raised here or coming here at a young age has a story that might
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be relatable to a lot of people we want to get behind um this movement and so i can see on paper or
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maybe just doing a quick search of him but you're right if i was running like oppo research or like
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behind the scenes stuff i also would put thomas lukasic there because i think it actually does help
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contrast between danielle smith or even any of the the individuals uh working towards looking at what
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separatism or independence would look like i would love to have thomas lukasic as the alternative because
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i don't think it helps their cause uh i guess just quickly before we uh go to our parting shots
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nigel um the federalist conservatives in alberta i mean a majority a pretty big majority of alberta
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self-identified conservative voters say they support independence but there's a
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a pretty sizable minority who do not uh who are federalists um and and that's disproportionately a
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higher number the higher up the political food chain you go you got you know you're jason kenny's etc
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how do you think those guys are going to feel uh marching and thomas's little band well as you know
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they don't have to wait to march in his band to feel a bit awkward because they may still be federalists
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but that doesn't mean they like the values that the liberals are pushing and imposing on the rest of
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the country they don't want that in here in alberta so there's not willing they're just really not
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quite ready to uh to raise the revolutionary flag but you know people aren't happy i think thomas is
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gonna be the gift that keeps giving oh i'm planning on making a match i think he's the next nenshi
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like that was a great gift for conservatives to have nenshi as the ndp and now we have uh thomas
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leading loud and proud of the uh you don't think one man she's enough
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go fabio hey if it helps our movement they can both do whatever they want