Shaun Newman Podcast - #972 - Chris Scott

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Chris Scott is the owner and operator of the Whistle Stop Cafe, a combined café, convenience store, gas station, and RV park located in the small hamlet of Mirror, Alberta, Canada. He gained widespread attention during the COVID-19 pandemic for defiantly reopening his business in defiance of Alberta's public health restrictions on in-person dining and gatherings, which led to multiple charges under the Public Health Act, fines, brief jail time, probation, and a high-profile legal battle that ended in his acquittal in 2023. He hosts The Chris & Kerry Show, while building a large online following through social media where he advocated for personal freedoms and criticized government overreach.Tickets to Cornerstone Forum 26’: https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone26/Tickets to the Mashspiel:https://www.showpass.com/mashspiel/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Prophet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail] the code “SNP” on all ordersGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

This is Viva Fry. I'm Dr. Peter McCullough. This is Tom Lomago. This is Chuck Prodnick. This is Alex Krenner. Hey, this is Brad Wall. This is J.P. Sears. Hi, this is Frank Paredi.

This is Tammy Peterson. This is Danielle Smith. This is James Lindsay. Hey, this is Brett Kessel, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. How's everybody doing today? First off, I just want to give a shout out to all the companies who came to the S&P Christmas show on Saturday night.

I think everybody had a good time. the dueling pianos back in and I just want to give a huge shout out to all the companies that continue to make having that show a possible and another sellout for the fourth year in a row and yeah my hat's off to all of them I hope they enjoyed themselves I believe they enjoyed themselves but uh you know anytime you put on an event and uh try and you know put something on for companies to enjoy I hope they they enjoyed themselves and uh hopefully they come back for for another year regardless uh once again just a big shut out to all the companies and uh people who came out and enjoyed uh an evening celebrating christmas and getting their company respective companies

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They are the major retailer of firearms, optics, and accessories, and they serve all of Canada. Carly Claussen, the team over at Windsor Plywood, builders of the podcast studio table. When it comes to wood, these are the folks you want to go see, whether we're talking mantles, decks, windows, doors, sheds, podcast studio tables, among other things. When it comes to character, Wood, look no further than Windsor plywood here in Lloyd Minster. Stopping and see Carly and team today. The Mashpiel is just around the corner, folks. January 17th in Kalmar is just west of Laduke. We hope to see you fine folks there.

It's going to be a, well, as we talked about on the Festivus episode, it's going to be a pretty relaxed day. And Lee's Merle now joining the crew of Chuck Prodnick and Willie McDonald and Jamie Sinclair, Marty up north, Eva Chippeuck, twos. It's going to be a fun little day. And if you want tickets, it's down on the show notes, or you can text me, I'll give you the link so you can grab. You can sign up as an individual or a team of four.

The Cornerstone Forum returns March 28th at the Westing Calgary Airport, and we just confirmed both. a week ago Larry C. Johnson is going to be along with Martin Armstrong, Tom Luongo, Alex Cranor, Vince Landry, Matt Erich, Chad Prather, Karen Katowski, Sam Cooper, Tom Bodrovics, 222 minutes. And the early bird tickets are on until December 31st. I keep telling you folks, and I hope you're listening. Don't wait. Prices go up January 1. So buy your tickets today. I'm looking forward to seeing all you find folks on March 28th. If you're listening or watching on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Rumble, X, substack.

Facebook. Make sure to subscribe. Make sure to leave a review. And if you want to support the podcast, you can also become a paid member on Substack and get some behind the scenes stuff. And, you know, for the year and review, which we've recorded now, some of the fine folks got to ask questions and have their questions answered on the podcast. So that's some new things we're working on. And if you're interested in that, check out Substack. We've started releasing the entire show every day on there with some great feedback, I might add, which I don't know. You know, I'm learning all the time on this side, and that kind of surprised me a little bit. Now, let's get on to that tale of the tape. Today's guest is the owner and operator of the Whistel Stop Cafe. I'm talking about Chris Scott. So buckle up. Here we go. Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

Today I'm joined by Chris Scott. Sir, thanks for making some time to do this. I hope the journey here was worth it. Well, yeah, I'm happy to be here. It's been a long time coming. So, yeah, thanks for the invite. Yeah, it's a long overdue. So here, before we start, every guest who comes gets one of those.

What is that? It's the king. I got a story about silver dollars. Thank you. Um, when I was a kid, my, my grandpa collected coins and he invested in metals and stuff like that when I was really young. Um, I, I would go through his, you know, the, the, the, the jewelry box with the cuff links and stuff like that and pick stuff out. And there was always silver dollars in there. And I remember him giving me these, these silver dollars saying, you take care of these because someday they're going to be worth something. Well, you know where those silver dollars are right now? They went through general grants convenience store in Kamloops when I wanted to buy candies. So, uh, now. I would go another one. Thanks. Well, every guest who rolls in here gets a one ounce silver coin from silver gold bowl. And I was actually, I should have done this before I walked in, because the price of silver, one ounce of those.

I gave one to Daniel Smith a couple of years ago, and I remember thinking it was like $38. And I wasn't sure if I could give it to her or not. Yeah. And I want to say it was over $90. Yeah, that's getting there for sure. Yeah. Well, let's just see. if I can find it here.

Should I have had this up, folks. What am I doing? What am I doing, you know? Yeah, price of silver today, $90.16. Wow. Like the price of precious metals has gone exponential. You know, it's been interesting to watch. I mean, it's no, it should be no shock if you're paying attention to the state of the world.

But in saying that, like, you know, when I first started to hand them out, they were under $40. now they've over doubled. You know, that's pretty, pretty wild to watch it continue to, you know. And silver, silver's interesting to me because, you know, it's so much industrial process and there seems to be a little bit of a shortage, you know, but when watching gold and metals in general, I think what we're seeing is devaluing of our money more than anything. So anybody who was smart enough to start investing in metals, you know, a few years ago, they've protected their wealth.

They've done a really good job of it. Yes. now it's your first time on the on the podcast we're doing it in the new studio uh once again i hope i told chris is where he got in the video he's like where are we going i'm like we're going for an adventure i'm hoping i'm giving you a little bit of that but uh it's your your first time on the on the podcast tell the audience but i think everybody knows who you are but at the same token you know i was learning new things as we drove so um why didn't you you know i don't know share the long story of uh who you are and how you get to where you are well uh it's

short. I'm just an average Albertan. End of story. That's it. Just kidding. I was actually born in BC. So I'll start there. I was born in Campbell River. I grew up in Cameloups. I spent 14 years in Camelps. And it's kind of interesting now with what's going on around Cameloupes with the residential schools and the nobodies found that kind of thing. I've been following that because it's my hometown. But anyway, I spent some of my teenage years back on Vancouver Island in Campbell River. And then I came to Alberta in 2000 because I had friends who were here. And every time they came home from their shift work, rig work, they would have like a new DVD player or a leather couch or something that was unattainable for me. So I thought, you know what? I'm tired of I'm tired

of not being prosperous. So I'm going to go to Alberta and I'm going to work on the rigs. And that's what I did. I caught a $99 WestJet youth standby flight from Comox to Edmonton. From Edmonton airport, I took a cab to Leduc Safety Center and I got my H-2S and I did my first aid the next day and I waited two weeks until I got on a rig and that's how I ended up in Alberta. You know, as I was telling you in the drive over, I spent quite a long time on the rigs and in the oil field. And I've done many different things. I started working service rigs. My last job, I was a superintendent for an oil company in South America with a whole bunch of guys working for me,

responsible for a big area, that kind of thing. And I ended up getting out of that because I was tired of the politics, the office politics. I didn't like being away from my family quite so much. And also, I was tired of watching government make laws or put in policy that kneecapped my prosperity in my industry. right? We see it all the time when the NDP were elected, the oil patch was decimated. Other times we have like black swan events, global events that dropped the price of oil, for instance, COVID. Our oil here was trading at negative dollars at one point. Actually, that's interesting. The lowest I ever paid for fuel at my fuel station, I paid 18 cents a

liter when it was low like that. So anyway, I got out of it because I was tired of that. And I figured I'm going to buy this restaurant, this little piece of property as an investment, leave it the way it is, keep the staff, and just kind of, you know, be a business owner. Well, that was in July 2019. And as you know, in the next year, early in the next year, spring, the government, again, interfered in my prosperity and told me that I wasn't allowed to have customers in my restaurant. So it's kind of ironic. I spent all that time in the energy industry, which I love, still love to this day, got out of it

get away from the politics and the BS policy and ended up smack dab in the middle of it, more than ever before. So that's me in a nutshell. Yeah, you know, walk us through the whistle stop because, you know, like I think here in Alberta, if you think of COVID times, I don't know there's a few things that are kind of just like coincide with it. And the whistle stop is like, I think one of those images in everybody's mind of like, that was a big deal. Whistle stop was a big deal. whistle stop was a big deal uh you know like this podcast has probably been three years in the making uh i remember running into you i can't remember it was um well certainly in ottawa a few times yeah but i want to say it was just after thunder bay there was a stop on a roadside somewhere one of

the truck pullouts and i was asking for chris barber because i'd interviewed him i mean heck that's the reason my entire youtube channel got removed and i was trying to track him down And everyone's like, who, who? And then I was like, uh, big red. And they're like, oh, big red. He's standing right there. And so then he walked me up and hug Chris. And then he's like, oh, um, whistle stops here too.

And I chuckled and I said, is he? I'd love to interview him on the road. And we met very briefly because everybody was running around. And I'm like, ah, it'll happen. It'll happen. And then, you know, you think about it. You blink and all of a sudden, a couple years go by, three years go by. And then we run into each other at the UCPA-GM.

And it's like, no, this is long overdue. You should be in, we should have a chat, we should discuss all these things. It should have been discussed back then, and it just didn't happen for whatever reason. And everything in God's timing, I think. And so you're sitting here, and I think I know everything, but at the same token, you know, like, I know everything from afar, right? I watched everything go on with the whistle stop. I've heard so many people come through the studio that stop in, continue to stop in. But maybe walk us through the events, you know, running a restaurant at that time.

Well, July 2019, I exercised a lease to purchase agreement to take the place over. And it was a friend of mine that I bought it from, we're amicable. It was a good deal for me. It was a good deal for her because she wanted out. She's tired, wanted to send me retire. And I thought it was an interesting thing. So in July, it was a steep learning curve for me because the first thing I learned was the turnover rate in hospitality is huge. So I lost two cooks and ended up in a position where now I had to cook and I had never

cooked in a commercial kitchen before. I'd wash dishes in my mom's restaurant, but that's it. So I ended up right in the heart of the operation in the kitchen doing my thing. Well, it took me about a month before I realized that I actually loved that. It was awesome to me to make something and serve it to people and watch their faces light up as they enjoyed their meal. Love it. So I kept doing it.

And we changed the business. made it less what it was and more what I wanted it to be and what we wanted it to be. So we did some menu changes and we launched like a steak night and different types of things and we started doing pizza. And I wanted this to be like the place that everybody came to because the food was so good. And we have accomplished that. But in between, you know, being a new operator of a restaurant is expensive. It's a very expensive learning curve. There is a steep, tuition to pay because margins in a restaurant are not very, they're not very big. So if you're making a mistake and your waste is too high, your labor is too high, don't people accidentally take money

that doesn't belong to them, it really hurts. So I ripped through my, uh, my capital, like my, my operating capital in about six months, which, which I expected to. I expected to do that in a new business. But then, uh, we started seeing the, the, the benefits of, of the learning we did and the changes we did, we started to make some money. But now it was coming on January, and by March, January, February, March, you're always slow in the restaurant industry. And then by March, we were starting to see light at the end of the tunnel and the government said, no, you got to close. So then I'm like, oh my goodness, I spent all this money, put all this time in, we've done all these things. And now I, how am I going to pay my bills? But somehow we managed to get through that.

We got through that for a year. And it is thanks to a friend of mine, good friend of mine, He helped me out. And when I couldn't make payroll, he would lend me the money to do it. And, you know, so I had a little bit, a little bit of help along the way. And we did that for a year. And that was the year that we saw COVID on the newspaper on the front of the newspapers every day. You remember that? The newspaper was like, you know, five pages and everything was about COVID.

It was all scary. So I'm watching this. And for the first three weeks or so, I'm scared like probably a lot of people were. I've got elderly grandparents and I was thinking, man, if they touch something, they're going to die and everyone's going to die and what are we going to do? But after that three weeks, I'm looking around. There's no sirens all the time. There's nobody's really sick. There's, you know, we're not losing vast swaths of the population. And I started paying attention to what was happening around me, the messaging, the messaging from the media constantly in my face.

The TV was global news all the time back then in the restaurant. and it always had that ticker on the bottom, cases, deaths, hospitalizations, ICU utilization, and they're all scary numbers. So I started to, now I've got time because I have no dining room to be open. So I start looking into these things. And I realized some things like, okay, well, ICU utilization, that's a scary number, but it's always, apparently it's supposed to be 100% because if they don't need the ICU, they use the space for something else.

And if they need more ICU, they expand. And you're so 100% is an efficient place. to be. So I realized that. Then I then I dug into what cases meant. And I dug into what the hospitalizations meant and who was being hospitalized and why they're being hospitalized. And I'm looking at things going on in other places in the world. And I realized that Canada and the United States, for the most part, were like one of the few countries that were not using all the tools at the disposal. They weren't using early treatment. Like you've had Dr. Peter McCullough on and he talked about the McCullough Protocol. And so all these things are going on.

my mind at the same time as I'm watching my bank account and my future slip away and I thought oh man I got to do something I have to stand up for myself or do something because I'm just going to lose my business anyway and then I saw jason kenny our amazing conservative parachuted in savior from ottawa say we're sorry we should have never done this everybody's essential we shouldn't be saying who's essential we're not going to do this again to you and I was like oh my goodness finally or it's over. Well, it wasn't even a week. A week later, he came back on some live stream and he said, oh, the numbers are up and we got to, what was the phrase? The slogan was we have to not protect Albertans. It was we have to protect the healthcare industry or something

like that. We have to protect the hospitals. It wasn't about protecting us. So then this is in my head and now I'm steaming that. And I thought, okay, I'm going to do this one more month. Dina Hinshaw said, we need one more month to flatten the curve for the last, you know, year that was the two weeks. I'm going to get through this. But if it, if it doesn't open, if we don't open, I'm opening. End of story. Well, the 30 days came and went. Dana Hinshaw said, we need another week. So me, like most other people, a chicken, I said, oh, I'm not going to do that. I can't fight the government. I'll just wait this one more week. Then she came on and she said, well, we can't open you. Anna, we actually don't know when we can

open your businesses again. And that was the last straw for me. The next day I had a conversation with my family, with my staff. And I said, look, I'm, I have no money. I can't continue doing this. The business is going to go under. I'm going to open illegally. And I said to my staff, I have no money. I can't pay you. And they're like, no problem. We'll work for free. We'll stand with you to do this. And I did. And the rest is kind of history. But I do want to mention that, in that two weeks, the first two weeks I was open illegally, apparently not, though, because the restrictions turned out to be illegal. My staff made probably two or three times as much money as they would have had I paid them because people were so supportive of my staff and me

and grateful that somebody was standing up. So that fear that I experienced at first, the fear of the unknown, the fear of standing up against the government, the fear of putting myself out there for what I believed in, was very quickly diminished. by the amount of people who were thinking just like I was but didn't know what to do or were too scared to do it. But when they saw someone doing it, then they could, they could stand up themselves. So that was the biggest lesson I learned from that was that, you know, all, the majority of the time, if we're feeling like something's wrong, we're, we're feeling like, are we crazy because we think the world is wrong? It's very likely that most other people feel

that way too. And if one person stands up and says it, then you can change the entire world. And I think I'm hoping that we had a hand in changing the outlook of Alberta with that stand. Oh, and no doubt about it. Full stop on this side, right? Because at that that time, how many people were looking around going like, what the hell is going on, right? I don't know what small role I played in it, just a small role but opening up discussion so people can talk is a very important thing and hearing you know you know something's wrong but you can't quite you just can't quite verbalize it and then you start to see it happen you're like oh that's what it is and then people start talking and they start arguing they start discussing and all of a sudden good things come out of that you know i think that's what we want

in civilization except there is a part of the world that definitely does not want that that's true And what you did with whistle stop, you know, like you've been, I don't know, is the word, exonerated? All the charges that came against you have all been, because of the Ingram decision, if I'm correct, right? I've all been, basically these don't stand up to nothing. You know, so all the fines they had against you, everything. It's all gone. But you're a guy who's went to the wall for, I mean, you were motivated because you're going to lose it anyways, right? But you still went to the wall.

It was a fear response. It wasn't because I'm a great person or a brave or creative. It was a fear response. The fear of what was going to happen, what was inevitable, was greater than the fear of what the government was going to do to me. That's what it was. But that changed. That changed into courage when people stood with me.

That was the key. Yeah. I tell people will always say the podcast was like a light in a very dark time. and I chuckle about that because I'm like the only way the light was getting filled up was all the people telling me that you know it was a one of those I don't I forgive me folks I didn't grow up in the time of using oil lanterns but I do get the concept right eventually the oil runs out and it goes off and they just kept pouring more oil in so that you could keep going that was a very important thing on this side for the podcast for people to because I don't know

about you I'm curious at the whistle stop did you have people come in and lose their crap on you or was it 99% positive? Can you imagine how we could identify the people that didn't agree with us? I can imagine. Okay. So every now and then, somebody would come in like that. And they would come in visibly upset and expecting what the media was portraying us to be. Like I did an interview with Global News.

And they portrayed me to be an anti-this, anti-that, anti-everything. and I wasn't. I didn't give a, I didn't give two hoots how you wanted to present yourself if you wanted to wear a mask or whatever. I didn't care. Wipe the toilet seat if you pee on it. Pay your bill. Carry on with your day. You know, that's, that's it. But these people would come in and expecting me to be what the news portrayed me to be. And they're hot already. But 90% of the time, we would have a conversation and it would turn out that we just disagree but we're okay with each other. I remember this old dude came in and he's burning around my parking lot, just hot under the collar, so mad, wearing, I don't know how many masks he's wearing, but this is an old guy. He's scared

great. So I went out to the parking lot and I kind of just followed him to the end of my parking lot walking and eventually he stopped and rolled down his window. He says, what do you want? I said, oh, I'm just wondering, you know, why are you here? You're driving around and he explained why he's mad and that this wasn't a joke and people were dying and this and that. And I said, you know what? That's not what I'm seeing. That's not, I don't think you're seeing it either, but either way, like, what does that

have to do with me serving a coffee to someone? And you're here anyway. So we had about a half an hour conversation and he left not mad anymore. And I've seen him back there, you know, two or three dozen times since then. So everybody didn't. agree, but the ones that bothered to come and have a conversation at least left with a different perspective, and it wasn't that I was the devil. But you mentioned that I was exonerated, I think is the word you said, mostly in the court. I never received an apology from Justice Adam Germain

for declaring to the people of Alberta in his verbal explanation of the sentence that I caused immeasurable and irreparable harm to the people of Alberta. A sitting judge said that about me. There was never any evidence submitted to that effect. Even AHS was like surprised that that was being said. So I never received an apology for that. In my trial, like my trial, not for the contempt charges, AHS admitted that no, I never caused any problems. Nobody got sick. Nobody died. There was never any COVID cases at the whistle stop cafe or that came from the whistlestop. However, the news never retracted that I was a super spreader or I was killing people, any of those things. So while I was, the charges were dropped, the court of public opinion was allowed

to continue with that narrative, even in the news and some politicians. And to this day, I just, I just heard the other day, we do a free turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas. And one other time. Oh, on my birthday. Everything's free at the whistle stop on my birthday. That's my birthday president, but getting the feed people. Somebody said to one of my customers, oh, I would never go and support that. He only does that because the court ordered him to. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, people still think that about me.

People still think that this was all just some ploy to get attention. I don't like crowds. I'm not particularly fond of people. I never wanted attention. I ended up with attention and it was kind of out of my control. but that's still going around. There are still people that believe those things about me and my business. I would say roughly half of my town, think I'm the devil, think I'm the devil because of

the stand I took. I was never actually exonerated. My charges were dropped, but I wasn't exonerated. Never apologized to. Didn't get any of the money that I had to pay in fines back. I didn't get any of the 200 hours of community service back that I did. You know, so yeah, there's still a lot of remedy that should be there. but it's going to be a long time coming.

I appreciate you clearing that up because I didn't know how to say it in the proper sense. There's two different things, right? Yeah, 100%. You bring up the free meals. I think that's a cool story, right? It's the whistle stop for me.

This is once again from afar. This is what I see. And here from all the probably thousands of people that stop in all the time is that, you know, like, you've really built a community there. That's what it to me looks like. You took your stand, a very public stand, one that got, you know, you slandered every which way through the media.

And then eventually, you know, it comes out that, oh, wait a second, he doesn't actually have to pay any of this and, you know, and on and on that went. But you bring up the free meals and you bring, you know, and you're July 1st. And, like, I just, I'm probably missing 17 days that you do. But, you know, like, become pretty good friends, I would say, Chris, if you're listening. barber like become um pretty good friends and like you know he talks so highly of you and they show up to different events you put on and uh you know and hats off to tamara and chris as they sit at home and house arrest but uh you know i i want you to talk about you know christmas christmas is right around the corner what do you do on christmas and and uh you know if people

wanted to show up or help or anything supported how can they do that well yeah and thanks for reminding me, I've got a couple emails from people that I haven't responded to yet asking if they can help. But Christmas, New Year's, or probably Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. We've been doing free turkey dinners since I opened. And that kind of happened because the first year I was, I was thinking, what do I do for Christmas? Do I close so we can spend time with their families? What is it that we actually want for Christmas? And the answer is, for Christmas for me, I want to, I want to give. I want to give something. It makes me feel good to give. And if you look at that from the perspective of what Christmas is, Christmas is about literally the greatest gift that was ever given to man. And that was

Jesus Christ, was given by his father for us so that we didn't have to die. And there is no gift better than that. So when you think about Christmas and giving, what can we do? What can we do to you know to bless other people and and participate in that spirit and it's giving so i thought well what do we do like a five dollar dinner or that's stupid i don't really care about five bucks and we'll just make it free and it works out you mentioned community it's the community that believes in what the whistle stop does that makes it possible because there's a bucket out and people throw 20 bucks in or 30 in or whatever and then um there's some people like one guy he donated a significant amount to basically cover at least half of the meal this year.

So people are very willing to do that because they know that there's other people who can't and they would otherwise sit at home maybe by themselves, maybe it's a senior that doesn't have any family left or whatever. They'd sit at home by themselves and not have turkey and not celebrate the Christmas spirit. And now they have a place to do it. Right. So, yeah, a few times a year, the people that can't are not able.

to go out and spend the ridiculous amount of money that it costs to go to a restaurant, they can do that. They can have a nice night out with their family. And there's more to it. We bring people together who share our values and they get to talk to each other. That's one of the hardest things about the free meals is we have a small dining room and people just want to stay and talk and visit and they're having a great time. And I'm like, eat turkey and get out because we've got a line up down to the highway, right?

But this year, I thought of that and I thought, well, what do we do? What do we do this year so we can feed more people? And I was hoping to have my addition built by this year. That was a plan. I want to double the size of my dining room, double the size of the kitchen, and change the restaurant a little bit so that when it's busy, we can serve more people. Well, that didn't get done.

So I thought, why don't we do a drive-in movie and turkey dinner at the same time? So this year, we're going to do the free turkey dinner, but we're also showing a Christmas movie so people can park their cars, just like an old drive-in, like we used to do, during the COVID times and they can enjoy their turkey dinner watching a Christmas movie with their family and I think that way we're going to be able to serve a lot more food and people won't have to wait and yeah I'm quite quite quite excited about that this year although it means twice as much work but that is what it is but as for helping I finish my Christmas morning

thing with my family immediately I'm to the whistle stop and I'm cooking generally I'll show up at about four in the morning and I get everything in the oven and then I go home and do Christmas and I come back. So I get the meal mostly done by myself and then the staff comes in and we'll serve. So if people want to come and help, they just have to show up and it could be as simple as, you know, taking a garbage can around to cars and collecting plates or things like that or maybe helping run food out to cars. It's very informal and, and it's kind of like when you, when you go to your family's house, you don't go there with a plan on what you're going to do and you have to do it. It's like, oh, you're going to help out where you can.

forgive me for this being a this will be a dumb question but i'm curious about this because like you know could every restaurant do this they could but they don't and your background of being like i'm friends with a bunch of guys from the rigs and i was sane t on the way out i'm like man rig guys are sharp uh you know twos is is a rig guy my best friend's a rig guy there's just lots of rig guys and uh they come off as these like burly i don't know mean obese that are, you know, like, and then you open a restaurant and you're doing one of the kind of things I've heard about, I don't know, I'll be curious what the audience has to say. Was that something that you mentioned working in your mom's restaurant? Is that something that

you learned or is it something along the way you're like, you know what? You mentioned you like giving back and especially on Christmas, although you mentioned Thanksgiving and I think Easter and your birthday. Was that something that you just stumbled into? or you put a lot of thought in or you always want to do. I don't know. You come from the rigs and then you come and you have this, I don't know, big giant hurt, I guess is the way I'd look at it. I don't know that I've ever worked with a crew who wasn't generous in one way or another like that.

Most of the people that I've worked with in Alberta, like even my very first tool push, that guy was an asshole, like big time. But I wouldn't change it for the world because he made me learn. Like I was that dumb BCF for the first three months I was on the rig. You know, the guy, if I would lip him off, he'd, he weighed 500 pounds. He'd stuff me in my locker. Like, it was rough. But we'd go out for a meal and he'd always pick up the tap.

And he would care about what was going on our lives and talk to us after work. And he would tip very, very well everywhere we went. A lot of the oil field guys that come into the whistle stop that I know, they're the ones that are first in the line to throw 100 bucks in a bucket so to make sure other people can can have something. And I don't know, you know, when I was a kid, we didn't get to go to restaurants much. We're fairly poor. We certainly weren't in a position where we could go out to a restaurant. If we went out, it was because we went and delivered magazines for a weekend so that we could have enough money to go for a family dinner. So that thing, that stuff was kind of

special to me. And now I look at the price of, I'm actually embarrassed when I have to give a family their bill for their meal. Like it is unreal. It's unreal what things cost these days. And I think back to when I was a kid, there is no way we could do that. So it makes me feel good to know that people can experience that and I have enough that I can do that but I don't know I don't know if every restaurant could do this. We're very unique because we have a tribe, right? The people that love the whistle stop, they share the same values we do. That means they care about people and they'll stick their necks out or sacrifice or give something up to benefit others. They've tried in other restaurants in urban centers to do this type of thing where you know you pay what you can afford

and they found out very quickly that it just doesn't work you know if you don't not everyone shares our values not everyone shares our views and there's a lot of people in this world that want to take and from what i've seen of businesses that have tried to do this in other places it doesn't work out because of that you know so sure they could do something where maybe if they got some sponsors or whatever and they could put on a free meal and advertise for some businesses that might work but the idea of, of risking, saying, and I never know how many people were going to feed. I never know how much turkey I need to buy or anything like that. I just buy a lot and cook a lot.

But not knowing, it's, you don't enter into the unknown in business. And that's the difference between me and a different, a business focused person is I'm willing to go into the unknown and take that type of risk and count on the people who share my values to help. whereas they don't have that confidence. So it's a different situation. I just think it's super cool. You know, and I didn't know this story before you're covering out.

And as, you know, I forget, what is this air on this? Airs on December 22nd, I think, is when this comes out. And I'm like, it's just, to me, it's like, you know, I want to talk about Alberta independence with you. I want to talk about some politics.

I can't wait. But I think it's really, really cool as we're entering into, I mean, we're already in, the Christmas time of year. But, you know, like the week of Christmas, I do a Christmas Day podcast with Tanner and a day.

And yes, folks, that's happening again. And that started the first year I podcasted. I wasn't going to release anything on Christmas. I was going to listen to it. And wouldn't it be blue-collar guys that reached out and said, well, I have to work. And I would love it if you put something out on Christmas Day because I got to be out there.

And I was like, oh, okay. And then, you know, that's evolved to where, you know, I have Tanner and a day on, on Christmas Day and we talk about Jesus mainly. We bring up some different things and I'll be curious where our conversation goes this year. But, you know, like I just think it's super cool and it feels very timely, you know, with Christmas right around the corner and hopefully if, you know, if people want to help, they can or if they want to show up, I mean, all the power to it.

I mean, like, you know, this year it doesn't work, but I'm like, you know, normally my wife's from the United States. So our, the Newman family Christmas is on Christmas Eve. So on Christmas Day, we sit there and twiddle her thumbs because we have nothing to do. And I'm like, well, that might be something, you know, in the years to come. Maybe a little road trip and show up and say hello and have the kids help out a little bit. And then tour it all back, you know, a little bit of an adventure. As you can tell out here, I enjoy a little bit of an adventure.

So I just think it's super timely to have you on and talk about those things because that's the values I share. I think it's, I just think it's super cool. And I got a ton of time for building community. yeah it's it's it's a lot of fun um have you ever gone to a restaurant you have a turkey dinner and you get your turkey dinner and you're like it's turkey and it's dinner but it's not like what i remember from home it's not like that in my place when i make stuffing like we use my turkey dinner that i'll make for the whistle stop i'll use probably 15 pounds of butter real butter we fry our stuff in real tallow like i cook my turkeys the way my grandma did uh when you get your vegetables on the plate

They're real vegetables that we cut up in the back and we cook from fresh and we pile the butter on. You know, it's, it feels like a real family turkey dinner, not just a mass produced, good enough to call it turkey dinner. So you, uh, yeah, we're, we're spending Christmas away from our family, like our blood family, but we're, we have the opportunity to spend Christmas with the, the broader family of human beings that, you know, believe in, in, uh, you know, the values that we hold. Albert Independence.

You've been a guy who's been, I think, very vocal about it. I think that's safe to say. Is it possible? 100%. It's not only possible, it is inevitable. And if you want to know my rationale for that, you can check out my blog. It's at wasstoptruckstop.ca.

which that's ironic that it's dot CA, but it was a different time. There's a blogger wrote wrote called Alberta Independence Necessary and Inevitable. Yes, it's going to happen. And what makes you so certain? It has to. It has to. Look at the history of the world. At what time has a group of people with values so starkly different from their larger, you know, engulfing body?

not gone their own way. Like, it always happens. That's a reason why countries generally get smaller. It's a reason why Czechoslovakia is the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It's a reason why Norway and Sweden split the sheets. You can't, the idea of unity is great. I mean, we can unify on things like freedom, liberties, freedom of freedom. freedom of religion, we can, we can unify on those things. We can unify on things like we are

going to trade and we're not going to put up barriers. But when it comes to trying to unify a group like central and eastern Canada with a group like Western Canada, they are incompatible. They cannot be governed under the same rules. We do things different here. We're makers, we're builders, we're survivors. You know, we, the people that settled this area, they had to deal with what we're dealing with right now with no electricity, no automobiles, no nothing. The East, they were quite civilized, top hats, you know, they beaver fur, everything. And the idea back then was they want the West to be part of the Dominion so that they can, they can so that the great trade of the prairies could be used to enrich their lives,

build up their factories and their places of work, and contribute to their prosperity in every way. That's a paraphrased quote from Clifford Sift in 1904. So you look at what's happening right now, Alberta, what do we want in Alberta? We want to be left alone. We want to farm. We want to raise our children. We want to be freak of the woke ideology that's infiltrating everything. And we want to be able to make laws that govern us ourselves. We can't do that right now. We're taxed without representation. And people will argue, oh, no, it's by representation. We elect MPs and they go and they get a voice too. I'm sorry, but it's not true. Even if the West 100% agreed on one thing and we sent all of our MPs to parliament,

to try and change something. For instance, maybe we want to change the equalization formula. Maybe we want to change it so that instead of Eastern Canada having 80% of the senators and Western Canada having 20, maybe we want that equaled out. We can't do it. We don't have a big enough voice. We're never effective at changing the laws that govern us. And if you cannot change the laws that govern you in your society. That's not democracy. That's tyranny. Right. And tyranny doesn't last because it comes to a point where people realize what they're doing to us isn't right. The federal government right now, they're one MP away, one MP floor crosser away from having a majority government and passing laws that allow them to look at

your mail, to monitor your phones, to direct your internet service provider to shut you off. if you talk about something like Ivermectin that they don't like, we're one MP away from that. And as an Albertan, it's not just like, hey, we're paying too much taxes, equalization sucks, they're interfering in our industry, their policy locking our oil. It's like, okay, they're doing all those things, and we have no way to change it. And when you come to that realization, you have two choices. You accept the status quo and you agree to live as a subject under tyranny, or you stand up and you say enough is enough. and I chose to say enough is enough. Oh, there's a third option that a lot of people are talking about,

and that's leaving, right? Yeah, there is that. There's a ton of people that are just, they don't want the fight anymore. They just, they see it, they've been through COVID or whatever iteration in whatever time frame, and they're just like Canada is broken. And they're, you know, actually I got my year in review coming up that we do.

I do, we did the first one last year, and we're going to do it again, first podcast guest I had on, Kenner-Otherford's coming back on and one of the questions were asked is whether or not an individual goes I just don't know if I stay anymore like I just I don't I don't get this country anymore it just feels like it's it's broke beyond belief all the values that I hold and I'm told that I'm a I don't know right-wing crackpot for thinking them and on and on all the fobs yeah if you were talking to the people that are on the fence of maybe I should just go what would

you say to them about staying and having Alberta find its own way? I don't blame them. I don't blame them at all. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to say it hasn't crossed my mind. But here's my thought on that. Canada has always been the new frontier of freedom. That's what it was. People literally gave up their comfortable life as aristocrats in England. My family was one of them, and they came here with nothing, and they lived in a granary for years while they broke the land by hand. That's what these people did. And they did it because of freedom. Where in the world can you go right now that is free of the impending removals of freedom that we see in the West? There is nowhere. There are places you can go where there's a better chance of

living free for longer, right? The countries that have right-wing military separate from government that keep government in check. Colombia is a great example. Colombia has a really radical left government right now. Their military is apart from the government. They're very right-wing. And if the government gets too crazy,

the military just says, you're not the government anymore. There's a coup and they take over and they administer and they have another election. So there's countries like that. But that's not all roses either. That's always messy. El Salvador. People are moving to El Salvador because, you know, it's beautiful there.

They have great health care if you have insurance. They have, you know, good quote. Their crime rates lower than ours, Buckelly. Crime rate is very low because they don't mess around. And that is a double-edged sword as well. Because if you ever find yourself on the wrong side or you have to protest something's going on, it may not go well for you. So to the people that are considering leaving,

just say, I understand why, but ask yourself if there's anywhere you can go that you're guaranteed to be free. The only way that we're going to guarantee our freedom is if we take it, right? We have to make a sacrifice and we have to pay a currency for freedom. Mitch Sylvester, he says this, excellent. There's people that fought for freedom and the currency they paid for that freedom was their blood. That's what bought our freedom was blood. Whether you're talking about our freedom in this country are our freedom in the afterlife. Both currency is blood. And we have an opportunity right now to pay for the freedom that we could have in an independent Alberta with our time. We can give up, Mitch asked for 10 days a year. If he says, let's go, show up here, stand with us and

be counted, go and be there. And if we do that, you know, if we get a million people in this province or 2 million people to give their time, this will be the greatest place in the planet. Unless you want to talk about that, I'm going to, I'm going to go into a little bit of a short history lesson as to why it is that we need to be independent and why we can't be free under the current situation. You mentioned that Canada is broken. The Canada that we believed was real doesn't exist. It's not broken. It's exactly the way it was intended to be. We had this idea and we were taught this as kids. you probably experienced this as well. When I started going to school in the mid-80s, I'm 46 years old, so I was born 79, started going to school around 1985, 1986. Now, well, that was only four years after the Constitution was repatriated.

And Canadians were very excited about this. Most Canadians, Elmer Canutson wasn't, Chris Christie wasn't excited. Many people in the West weren't excited because of what it meant for Western Canada, but that's another conversation. In my school, it was celebrated. You are free and you always will be because you have these documents. You have the bill of rights, you have the charter rights and freedoms and the Constitution, and that's why Canada is free.

That's why it's the best place in the world to live. And it was exciting. I remember the feel of singing, Oh, Canada and singing God Save the Queen and those things when I was in elementary school. We were taught that Canada was formed by, you know, when the people just decided that they wanted to be a dominion and unify and be this big free country. That's not true. that is not what happened. Canada in the late 1800s or pardon me mid-1800s was under very imminent

threat of becoming part of the United States. The United States had fought and paid for their freedom in blood in the 1700s in the War of Independence. They bled for their freedom. They declared independence. They became a sovereign independent nation. Canada, we were a group of colonies that came from mostly England. And the English elite, they built this society in what's now Ontario, Quebec, on the fur trade, right? It was business. The Hudson's Bay Company was the biggest business on the planet back then. There was money for anyone who could participate. And there was a lot of money for the crown. This was a very significant business interest for the Empire of England, much like a lot of other places were, you know, India,

the Philippines, all sorts of places around the world were the English had colonies there in which they installed governors to manage the colony and make sure that the resources were available to the Empire of England. Canada was no different. But there became this threat that the United States was going to take the lands that England was using to fuel their industry for the resource. You remember the 54-40 or fight, right? The United States wanted to have the border like up near Eminton. And so what happened was there was a group of the original Laurentian elite, but it was before Lurier. Johnny McDonald, Georgia Tend Cartier, and a few others. They were they were statesmen of the day. And the conversation in my mind would be kind of like

this, hey, England, we need to do something. Otherwise, our colonies in the West are going to be absorbed by America and you're going to lose them. So they went to England and they sat down with London and they penned the BNA Act. It wasn't something we did here. It wasn't a group of people that had a constitutional convention and said, hey, government, this is how we're going to allow you to govern us. No, no, it was a business deal by those guys in England to maintain colonial control over the dominion of Canada by the monarchy. And they had to give up some things to do that, but they did it. And they rewarded those guys very, very well. The people that were empire loyalists back then were brought into the upper echelons of power in London. They were given

titles. They were given knighthoods. They gave out knighthoods like it was going out of style up until like the 60s. So we never had that moment of we're going to chart our own course forward. We were subjects of the crown and the crown said you can make your own laws this is how you're going to govern yourselves this is how you're going to be and there you go and and and and canadians have this idea oh that's we became independent sovereign no we didn't we didn't we were given a set of rules by mom and dad on how we could live in their house right from the very beginning so we need to have that moment where we say okay we're done living under mom and dad's roof with the trust we're going to inherit the trust because we've grown up. Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan, Mantoba, we've grown up.

We have the capability to manage our own wealth and affairs. We don't need to be part of that anymore. And we shouldn't be. A free country. The United States, 250-some-odd years old, the longest surviving free democratic country on earth is free because of their constitution, because it was the people who decided. And that's what we need to do here in Alberta. And to the people that say they want to leave, I would argue that if they stay and be counted in those numbers and participate in these things, we write our own constitution and we say, this is how we're going to maintain our freedoms. There is no better, there is no better path out there right now. The only thing you have right now is a band-aid on an axe wound by moving to another

country. The true cure is when the people finally take control of their own destinies, they give the government, the government ground rules, and we move forward. So that's a long-winded way of saying, it's very well put. Better to do everything we can to become the adults in the room that we're meant to be to seize our destiny than to abandon it for fear of failure. There's been a lot of talk of a referendum in 2026. I would say maybe I'm wrong on this, but I would say you'd have better knowledge than some on the timing and whether or not we will have a 2026 referendum on this. And then, you know, if you look at it and you're in all these different conversations,

There's no different than I am. What is your feeling if you get a 2026 referendum? Is that too soon, not soon enough? Will it happen? And do you think there will be a yes vote we want up? I don't think it's too soon because of the Alberta Prosperity Project. If we didn't have the Alberta Prosperity Project and a massive educational campaign to educate Albertans

as to the merits and benefits of independence, it would be too soon. But we have that. We have a group of like 16,000 volunteers that are ready to go, hit the ground running, and start this campaign and basically tell people why we need to do this. As for the timing, the only person that knows the timing is Danielle, the Premier. Nobody else knows. There hasn't been an announcement on when the referendum is going to be. There's been a lot of assumptions and rumors and things like that. But at the end of the day, if we have a, when, when we collect our signatures and I want to see a million signatures, so folks, you got to get out there and do it. That gives the government, it compels them to hold a referendum on their own

time with the question the way they want it. So there's two parts of this. We have to give the, we have to give Danielle, we have to compel the Daniel Smith government to hold the referendum via the Citizens Initiative Act. And number two, we have to make sure that it's well known when we want this referendum or in what timeline and what we want the question to be. I would like the referendum. I think October is good.

I think that's enough time. I want the question to be constitutional. I want it to have some teeth. I want it to be clear. So when it goes to the Supreme Court of Canada, they say yes, it was a clear question and yes, it was a clear answer. And then it forces the negotiation on secession.

but at the end of the day that ball is in the premier's court now what did you think I meant to I wanted to pick your brain on this and now we're weeks past it but you're at the UCPA-GM this year I think you're at the one previous of that too

but this one specifically you know there was a ton of I had a ton of questions on the booing and I chuckled about it because I'm personally I can't speak for for any politician but like as a member sitting there I'm like people are engaged

so they pointed the booze but then they missed the 15 standing oh she got right her comment on criminals coming into your house immediately I think I think everybody can't well I can't believe she just said and I don't know like I just see a

I've only ever gone twice the last two years I was never politically active before that voted all the time but I never you know I would say I knew nothing and going to them there's a level of engagement that is i admire because that's what you want out of people you want people to be engaged almost like it is the emminton honors playing in the stanley cup playoffs or

whatever your team is if you still have a team that is but what did you think of the UCPA jam yeah i mean you're covering it all uh before i talk about that i do want to i do want to give credit where credits do you know why people are so engaged in this province with in politics? It's because they were primed with what happened over COVID. They feel something's wrong. They want to do something. They don't know how because we're never taught. We're never taught civics and that should be mandatory. As a matter of fact, I would argue it will be mandatory in an independent Alberta. David Parker. David Parker organized the people that felt something and didn't know what to do. He educated them and he gave them the tools and showed them how to do it.

Now, love them or hate him. I mean, he did a fantastic job of teaching politically apathetic and ignorant people how to become involved in politics and get stuff done. And we've got stuff done, right? So I do want to give him credit for that. The boo boo booing at the AGM, people weren't booing Danielle. I'm well aware of that. We have a very interesting, interesting situation with the Premier right now.

it's not just that people accept her policy. They love her. Like they, the people of Alberta that appreciate Smith, they adore her. It's not just they want to vote for her. They see her doing things that nobody else does. She sticks her neck out.

When the people give her a mandate, she does it. And I'm not saying she's perfect. She's certainly not. She's done things that I've called her out for. I don't agree with her on everything. But it is a different situation with, her than we have with other premiers. My friend Jeff Rath, he posted some things on X,

basically challenging her about the MOU and some other things and saying, you know what, if you keep alienating your base, there's going to be a leadership review. And people are going to be mad and they're going to take it out on you. And he's correct because what we've learned is that if we have a problem with somebody in politics, we mobilize, we bring enough people and we win. And he's correct about that. But what I think he didn't understand is that people are emotionally attached to the Premier as well because they're seeing her do things like stand up for our children, stand up for our rights.

Yes, they botched the Bill of Rights. I'll admit that. But the other things that got her the standing ovation have created emotional connections of people to the Premier. So the booing was not booing her. it was booing the idea, right? And she's playing this game where she's, I want to, dare I say, pretending that we can fix these problems.

Maybe she knows that we can't, but she knows we have to try and fail. I don't know. But did you notice her response to the booing? What does she do? Did she argue? Did she get upset? Did she get flustered? No, she didn't.

She giggled. she giggled because she knows that Alberta doesn't believe that we can fix these things. She knows that. But at the same time, she hasn't been given a mandate to pursue independence. Yes, we're loud. Yes, we're pushing as hard as we can. But she was not elected on an independence platform. She was elected on the Alberta sovereignty within the United Canada platform.

She was elected on the mandate to do everything she can to fix the problems we have. so that we can stay in a United Canada, she was elected on those things. That's what she's doing. However, when we have a million signatures on this Citizens Initiative petition, she has a new mandate and the people of Alberta are speaking. And if there's anything that I've learned from Danielle, it's that regardless of what her personal beliefs are, at least this is what I think, if the people give her a mandate to do something, she'll do it. Even if it means she has to go stand out in front of the media and take the rotten tomatoes, right? So the AGM was a good representation of that in that largely supportive of all the policies. Of course, the MOU got booed

and it should. It's it's junk. There's a few good things in there that, you know, I think, I think we need. But at the end of the day, we know it's not going to change things. We know that the biggest parts of there, the pipeline, the working together, those things are not going to happen. And I wish she had been less celebratory about that. But I also do understand that in politics, you need to put out wins all the time so that you can keep the momentum. So, but it, but it was, I think it was a wake up call for her and, and her ministers and caucus to, to know that we're building this movement. We're, we're going to keep building the parade and, and she'll get in front of it. When you, when you're talking about signatures and the, the mobilizing 17,000, I don't know if you have a, do you know the time frame on that of when they're planning that?

I feel like I just saw something, but I'm spacing on if it had set actual dates. Okay, so Mitch Sylvester, the CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project, he was at Elections, Alberta in Emerton, the day the legislation changed. He was there at 11 a.m. and he filed a new question. Now, I'm not going to try and quote it. you can maybe put it up after. Yeah, for sure. But he filed the new question. It's with Elections Alberta right now. Elections Alberta has to do their bureaucracy things, whatever it is they do, spend a bunch

of money, spell check, whatever. And then they'll approve it. When it's approved from that day, I believe, I could be wrong, we have 120 days to collect signatures. It seems to me that with the Christmas break coming up, it's likely going to be somewhere around mid-January. So on January 10th, my friend Jason Levine is hosting an event at Legacy Place in Red Deer. And before his event, we're going to be there to host a campaign kickoff event to tell people, this is what's going on, this is how you sign up, this is what we have to do,

explain the conditions of the elections Alberta has for canvas, things like that. And we're going to get that ball rolling. And then by the end of January, we should be in full swing, collecting signatures that will compel the government to put a referendum question to the people of Alberta, a constitutional question regarding the future of Alberta in Canada. I'm just pulling up because Jason had sent it to me. Where is it here? Forgive me.

I'll find it. Yeah, he actually sent me a text with the event. And I was like, dude, I'm planning an event. I just announced it on the same day. And I still hadn't picked a venue or anything. So then I just decided, well, why don't we just do it together? We're aligned on almost everything. And it just, it fit.

Oh, crap. Jason, you text me in two different places. It's got to be on, I'm like, where did he send it to me? Because we're going to bring it up on the mashup forum. But where the heck is it? Oh, here it is. Here it is. Okay, I got it.

I got it. It's, okay. January 10th, you got something big is coming to Red Deer, January 10th. and it's fundamental truth shaping our country's future. It's got Jason Levine, Dr. Jack Mince, Layton Gray, Mia Hughes, John Carpe, Bathsheba, Vandenberg, I believe I'm pronouncing that right, Bruce Party, Sean Buckley, Teresa Buckley, and moderator Nadine Wellwood. And then Pastor Sean Hamm is going to be doing the prayer.

And that is January 10th. So I guess, you know, when I, where does it say, does it say, sorry, Jason, and I should have looked at this people. I didn't realize this was going to come up. Otherwise, I would have. Oh, that's what editing is for. Fundamental truce. Dot eventbright.com, if anyone's interested.

I just think of it if you got 120 days and you got somebody listening to the show that is, you know, is fully on Alberta and wants to help, but isn't a part of APP and doesn't get that email. It's like, well, how can they help, what they should be paying attention to? Because I've been following it along very, very closely, as I'm sure, a ton of Albertan.

and others are just like where is this at this is actually going to happen are they actually going to get to mobilize and see how many signatures they can collect i've been hearing a lot of this uh who's the other guy doing the stay in canada thomas lucasic thank you two somewhere is shouting going i you know exactly who that is we try to get him on the mashup that didn't go but uh you know like his you know 500 000 700 000 they have a couple different numbers they throw around and when you go a million it's like well if you really really want Alberta out, it's like, well, just get a couple friends to sign a petition and let's see if it, let's see where it goes, right? Like, I mean, if it comes to fruition, which it sounds like

it's going to, then it's on every Albertan, if you actually want this to do the bare minimum, and the bare minimum is like getting 10 signatures, which shouldn't be that, my personal opinion, shouldn't be that tough. But when that goes live, I'll be make sure that we get a few guys come on and talk about it, because I think it's very important for Albertan. to pay attention to. Yeah, for sure. Well, truth be told, we already have, we have enough signatures already. APP has been building a database of people who intend to vote yes to Alberta leaving. We would do that for years because we knew that the Citizen Initiative Act was a very difficult hurdle. And so we said, well, how do we do this and make sure it's successful?

Well, we just gather the contact information first. It's not part of the campaign. It's part of our internal thing we're we're building a database of people who are like-minded we got 260,000 so you know within one week we could have 250,000 signatures on that and the referendum is going to happen like we're going to compel that wouldn't it be wouldn't it be fun instead of 250,000 to have a million in the first week and it's just like what is that you know I remember Danielle being in the leadership race being at the APP debate when you had Ezra Levant and Is there a Levanton? Who is the... Dennis Modry?

Thank you. Dennis Modry. We're asking the questions. And one of Daniel Smith's responses to Ottawa, if I'm remembering this properly, well, as if we get into problems with them, we'll use the hammer. And she was talking about APP. She was talking about the fact that you got it at that time, I think it was $170,000. Forgive me numbers, folks. But it was a big number back then. And she was just saying, well, we use the hammer.

I'm like, well, the hammer's coming. because people are staring at what's going on in Canada. And, you know, everybody's, it kind of goes back to the COVID thing. When you're talking about your restaurant, you're like, okay, I'll wait the month. Okay, I'll wait the week. I think Westerners, specifically Albertans, have been going, okay, we'll give them until Great Cup. We'll give them a couple more weeks. We're doing it on your time.

Okay, yeah. Oh, the question gets held up. Uh-huh. Question's held up. All right. Now there's been things come. Okay. It's time to go.

and I'm curious when it gets released, you know, like how quickly the number grows, right? Because in my brain, and I assume you would agree with this, but feel free to argue, it's like, one of two things is going to happen. It's either going to be like, nothing happens, or it's going to go to the moon because people actually do one out of this thing. And I think a lot of people do. Everywhere I go, people, you know, whether they know this much or they're like you and have, you know, in my opinion, Chris, you have a, you have a.

an extensive knowledge of it, it's like, wherever they fall on that, they're all like, it's just time to go, right? Like, I mean, we can sit here and discuss and maybe Pierre gets in and maybe a few things are slowing down, but they're all looking at it and gone, we just want to, we just, yep, and mainstream and the liberal left can yell at you all you want. It's like, we've already been to COVID, don't really care. You yell as much, you call us, whatever you want to call us, we're all good with it. Can we just have our question?

and then, you know, when that happens, I'm going to be very curious on how quickly the number goes, right? Because I don't think, LeKazik had to, you know, there was a whole bunch of things come out of whether they were stopping old folks' homes and bussons or busing people and a bunch of different things. I'm like, the difference of what you're dealing with here is people are going to put fuel in their own tanks and they're going to go and do it. That's what I think. I could be wrong. No, you're 100% right. Look what happened when Mark Carney was elected, right? There's this massive revival campaign that Pierre Polioliev led.

And Western Canada was just on fire with the idea of electing Pierre Polyev as our prime minister. I'm sitting there completely unexcited, actually kind of pissed off that people are distracted by doing the same thing again and expecting a different result, knowing that Alberta independence is the only answer. But they were so excited. And we elected Mark Carney, and I say we collectively, because we're still a collective country. Yep. And APP was, they were signing up 5,000 people per hour, 5,000 people per hour. So it's there. The people are there. When it comes to the referendum question, you know, we start canvassing. We get our numbers. It doesn't matter if we get a million at that point, although I want to see a million for sure. We're going to get the referendum on the table because we already have enough people in the database. The real, the real fight then, because, comes from the time we start or from the time our signatures are verified and the government is compelled to have the referendum to the time we have the referendum. That's when the real work starts. That's when we need to be going everywhere. No rest. Educating people why they need to

vote yes to leave. Like do you want to have 30% more money in your bank account? That's a pretty straightforward question. Yes. And yeah, I mean, who doesn't want that? That's not a conservative thing. that is a human being thing, 30% more income. What can you do for your family? What can you do for your community? What can you do for your church? Like it's obvious. And then you get into some of the more nuanced things like, oh, would you like Alberta to be able to negotiate deals to get our resources to Tidewater? Because that's how we do it. We can't right now. We've been ineffective for 100 and however years. But we could do that. Is that what you want? Yes. Okay. Well, NDP supporter, do you want our hospitals to be better funded, better managed, and less waste?

Yes, of course we do. Do you want to pay the nurses more? Yes, of course we do. Okay, well, let's give our nurses and doctors, first off, a 30% increase in their pay because they're not getting taxed so much. And then we're going to constitutionally enshrine protections that prevent the fraud, corrupt, waste and theft from our public institutions. Right. So we can offer all the, entire political spectrum, what they want. The only thing we can't offer them is a emotional attachment to a country they believed existed that doesn't exist the way they thought it does. It does. That's it. Well, I just had in here last week, three military men who, forgive me, gents, I think it's 70 some years of combined experience for the Canadian military. They've bled,

they've lost men, they've lost friends. you know all three of them are like it's time to go yeah you're like you know when you talk about the average Canadian I like to think I'm kind of just the average Canadian it's like when do you feel most Canadian when Sidney Crosby puts on the team Canada jersey which happens once every four years and I guess with the Four Nations Cup okay every second year that's when we feel Canadian that's when we actually come together the only other time I've ever felt that if I'm being honest with myself was a freedom convoy yeah and that superseded any Olympic gold medal by

tack on however many times you want because that's what it was. And so you go, okay, when you really start thinking about it and you've got to come to the, what is Canada? Is it a land mass? Or is it something else?

And when you start talking about what's in Alberta, I think we have the most Canadian values under the sun. Like, I mean, it's full stop. Like, I mean, and I, once again, I grew up in Saskatchewan I got a ton of time for Saskatchew I was telling you we're walking in

I'm like oh where to go Saskatchewan is going to be what a day behind it I mean obviously I'm a little bit tongue and cheek on that but it's not going to be far you know

it's it's I'm just going to be very very very end I think there's so many of us that are interested we've just been sitting here kind of like twiddling our thumbs okay yep they got all the signal

all right sounds good are we are we going to have it no they're going to lock it up in the courts okay we're just going to sit here and wait and you know like i wanted everything to be so fast when i first got into the podcast world and started looking at politics i realized that is not how this goes this may this may well i i look at it and i go when it gets announced when you get the 120 days i'm like that'll be fun to watch here's why i say it might be faster um people have this misconception that we're asking nobody's asking

Like, when we have a million or two million signatures or a successful referendum, we're not asking Canada. There's a common misconception that it'll never happen because the Constitution needs an amendment. No, it doesn't. It needs an amendment after. And that's none of Alberta's business. We don't want to be under that constitution. We want a new constitution. As a matter of fact, the question, the old question that Alberta Prosperity Project put forward that ended up in court,

It was ruled unconstitutional, not because we can't ask the question, but because the citizen initiative act stated that we could only put a question forward if it was constitutional. Well, that makes no sense. Because if we put a question forward, maybe we want to put a question forward that says we want to change the constitution or remove something from the constitution or whatever. It doesn't matter what it is. That in itself is unconstitutional. Justice Feesby, who by the way is also the presiding judge over my class action lawsuit against

the Alberta government for what they did to business. businesses, he ruled saying, the question is unconstitutional because the Constitution Act 1982 guarantees each Canadian the charter rights and freedoms. But the reality is it doesn't because the government can say section one, we need to take your rights away like we saw during COVID. But regardless, it says it guarantees the charter rights of freedoms. Well, the court can't guarantee that independent Alberta would offer the people a charter rights and freedoms. It's not a guarantee anymore. Therefore, the question is unconstitutional. It's not because he was corrupt or wrong.

He was correct and accurate in his interpretation of the law. He did a fantastic job, and he said that it was unconstitutional. That's why Bill 14 was changed. Because the government realized and recognized that if the will of the people is to ask a question that's unconstitutional, it's not up to us to tell them they can't ask the question. It's up to them. The constitution should be up to the people. That's how that happened.

But the other part of it is, right now, we're pursuing the legal pathway as laid out by the Supreme Court in 1998 or 2000, re the Clarity Act. So they looked at the referendum Quebec had and the question was, can a province unilaterally declare independence according to our laws and constitution, the constitution's supreme law of Canada? And they came back and said no. But what they can do is if there's a democratically asked question and it's clear,

and the answer is clear that triggers negotiations with the federal government that may result in secession. That's how the wording is. So we're pursuing that. We're going to go down that path and if it turns out that the federal government puts out a bunch of roadblocks or tries to change the law, which Mark Carney wants to do, he wants to remove the notwithstanding clause from the Constitution, he wants to change it so that there is no legal pathway to succession because this is a trillion dollar mistake for, for Carney and his liberal government, they want to change those things. But when you have two million people in a province that say we're leaving, it's not up to the person you're leaving anymore. We, and when I say we, the Alberta Prosperity Project has

been in direct communication with the United States, the State Department, keeping them updated on what's going on with Alberta, why we want to leave, how we could work together after those types of things. And one of the questions was, if Alberta leaves, if Alberta declares independence, will the United States recognize? And their answer, because they're a freedom-loving democracy-respecting nation, is of course, of course we would recognize you. And as a matter fact, Canada should. Canada was the first country to recognize Kosovo as an independent state when they declared independence when nobody else would, right? So sure, clarity act, whatever. If that works, great. We part ways amicably. If it doesn't, I will be happy to be one of those 56 or

100 people that sign an Alberta Declaration of Independence that says we are no longer under the thumb of Ottawa and we are an independent nation. If there's two million signatures and the United States recognizes that sovereign nation, it is over. And then Canada has to decide what they're going do with the Constitution and the missing 15% of their GDP and $400 billion of the CPP, you know, those types of things. So we're not asking. I guess I had one final question I wanted to pick your brain on because you're a guy who talks to a lot of people. I thought you're going to say talks a lot. You know, when you look at the state of Canada, you know, you could look at all the different bills.

you've rattled off a ton today already. Is there a thing that deeply concerns you right now with the state of Canada you're like paying attention to? Yes. Democracy is concerning. Democracy is not the fastest path to communism, but it is the easiest. If you convince a group of people

that they have to vote for their own destruction, they will. And we have been. We have been elected. politicians that have been passing laws that threaten our futures. We've been doing it for decades. Sometimes we do it without knowing. Sometimes we do it knowingly. Sometimes we even vote for the lesser of two evils, right? We shouldn't be voting for evil at all. And if your only choices are evil or evil, then you remove yourself from the choice. And that's what Alberta's doing. So I am very, very concerned as to the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the

trajectory Canada's on. I wrote about this in my blog as well. I describe it as a managed decline of a nation with the goal of building back better. How do you build back if you don't first destroy? All indicators, economic, social, moral indicators of Canada are pointing straight down. Same thing happened in Venezuela. People thought it couldn't happen to them. And same thing happened to the Roman Empire, same thing happened to the Babylonian Empire, all across history. So, you know, these bills that are being passed right now, they threaten us with fines or jail for speaking our beliefs. Now, I know that there's some speech that's offensive to some people. I know there's people that say things that people don't want to hear, but I would

never say that they should be silenced because I want to know who those people are. I want to know. And if there's a problem with government or policy, I want to be able to say it. Right now we have a government that's talking about passing legislation in Bill C9 that would make it potentially a finable or jailable offense for reading out of your Bible because Leviticus and Deuteronomy in the Bible have been declared as hate speech by courts. So now the government's telling me that I can't, I might not be able to share the gospel of Jesus Christ because it might be offensive to someone. they arrest people in the UK for publicly praying silently.

And when you start going down that slope, there is no return because if you start silencing voices, look what happened during COVID. We tried to put out information that said, hey, this will save lives. Other countries are doing it. We can be better off if we do this. And we were silenced. Not only silence, but people like you, you lost income. They killed your YouTube channel.

And I'm assuming that there was a little bit of income there, right? I just crossed over the threshold and was just about, well, it was in the process of beginning that and, well, it's, yeah. And how much work is that? A ton. That's a ton of work. So they're threatening our ability to use our voices to enact change. And when that happens, it is over.

It's over. British Columbia is condemning the people of Canada as genocidal murdering maniacs and giving away land that people have worked hard for to another group of people. And this isn't going to be just British Columbia. Canada passed into law, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, which they said, all of our laws have to be amended or made to follow the spirit of undrip, which is, it's not good. I just released a replay of a podcast this morning.

So what is it today? 17th? 18th, something like that. Something like that? I just released it, talking about Undrip and the dangers. So when people ask, you know, what do I see as the outlook for Canada? I would ask them this. I'm 46 years old.

And if someone said to me, go back like 30 years in your mind and look at what Canada is and try and think of what you see now from that perspective, would you be okay? with it. And the answer is no every single time. So something has to be done. And something is being done. We're going to do it. It's inevitable. Appreciate you making some time for me today and making the travel here and everything else. It's been long overdue, but it was well worth the wait. I appreciate you coming in studio today and sitting across me and sharing some thoughts on Not only what you're doing with your business, Chris, I think that's, I just think it's super cool. And then you got some very coherent thoughts when it comes to Alberta or just the history of Canada.

And I appreciate you sitting across from me and doing this. My pleasure. I certainly appreciate the invite. So thank you.