We can’t keep waiting for an independence group to start campaigning, so I formed a Third Party Advertising organization (TPA). Let’s get a visible presence out there now!

Our organization is campaigning to encourage Alberta citizens to choose Option #2 on the October 19th referendum question “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”

The “Forever Canada” campaign is lapping us while the independence campaign is stalled. It’s embarrassing. We are losing the race before it starts. We need a sign campaign to show a presence in neighbourhoods, and we can get them out within days. We also must get some video advertising out there to reach new audiences.

It won’t cost much, but we need to raise some funds for this. You can donate to the Pathway to Independence campaign through the links below. If you are contributing more than $50, we need your information to remain compliant with Elections Alberta regulations. Please include it with a note on your donation. That means your address and a way to contact you in case we have any information wrong. Elections Alberta will eventually post who donated $250 or more to TPAs over the campaign, but they don’t share your contact information. You can email that information separately as well, so we can update the records.
You must also be a resident of Alberta.
The goal is to get lawn signs placed within a week and to get a paid advertising presence out there to reach the undecided.

This site will disclose all revenue and expenditures regularly (but will never share your personal information). Transparency is a must.

Lawn signs are ready for distribution in Calgary and area! In the North, Mr. and Mrs. Alberta will have signs at the Ifly near Deerfoot Mall from 11 am until 1 pm on Saturday, June 6. Click for the map.

I will be set up at the Auburn Bay dog park from 11 am until 1 pm on Saturday. Click for the map.

We will be getting signs across the whole province as they are printed and as volunteers distribute them. Fill out the form to get on the list if you haven’t yet. We will get one to you ASAP!

Donations can be sent by credit or debit card by scanning the QR code below:

You can also donate by clicking this text (I hate using QR codes too)

Please click here and fill out this form for e-transferring, as we must submit this to Elections Alberta for all donations $50 and over. The address for the e-transfer is within the form.

It’s not all about money, of course. To volunteer to inquire about getting a sign, click here.
I will be needing help.

To contact me directly, send an email to albertarep(at)hotmail.com

There are many groups that will be doing great things to move us closer to a vote for independence. We can’t keep dragging our feet waiting for them, though. The Alberta way is to step up and get things done. That’s what I am doing, and I am asking for your help with it.

Watch the video below to see more details on what I am up to and how to help.

I have been critical of the recall effort against Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek. The bar for recall was purposely set impossibly high by former Premier Jason Kenney and I still think the proponents of the recall, no matter how well-meaning are pissing in the wind if they think they will get over 500,000 signatures. I wrote as much in the Western Standard last week.

That said, I am always impressed by citizen engagement efforts and took the time to go downtown to see the recall kickoff event for myself. I understand fully why people want to get rid of Gondek as soon as possible. She is the least popular mayor in Calgary’s history and for good reason.

Strangely but perhaps not surprisingly, the powers that be didn’t allow the event to be held in front of city hall and they kicked the group onto the backside of the building. This caused confusion and the location is in a much lower traffic spot with limited visibility. City officials never dare to punt the pro-Hamas protesters to the back of the building when they hold unsanctioned protests, but in light of Gondek’s track record of antisemitism, I guess that isn’t surprising.

Still, hundreds of people found their way to the back and got in line to sign the petition forms. I don’t know how many people came in total as it wasn’t a rally. It was a signing event. People didn’t tend to stay around as there weren’t speakers or chants and such. They signed the forms and perhaps took blanks so they could help garner more signatures on their own. I never saw fewer than a couple hundred at any given time from about 1 pm to 3 pm. With people coming and going, the number of attendees surely passed 1,000 over the course of the event.

Having a thousand or even a few thousand people come out still wouldn’t strike fear into the hearts of the establishment. Getting the 514,000 signatures on physical forms from eligible Calgary voters in 60 days is going to require a much bigger initiative.

Still, the very prospect of people organizing against Gondek appears to have drawn the ire of the legacy media outlets in Calgary. They went out of their way to grossly understate the turnout. Global, CTV and the Herald all reported an estimated 100 people based on the report of some unnamed police officer and it was referred to disparagingly in quotations as a “rally”.

I know Global had a reporter there. I saw them. Why then did they use a stock photo of Gondek giving a speech rather than a picture of the event? Why did other outlets parrot that ridiculous lowball figure for the turnout?

Even if the turnout was limited, it still appears to have made the establishment, including legacy media outlets nervous for some reason. Legacy media outlets are always overjoyed to report on any gathering of over 12 people from the rainbow crowd as a groundswell of support, yet they fell over themselves to try and dismiss the recall event turnout. Even if they honestly reported the number as being in the hundreds, it still shouldn’t be such a fearful thing to do should it?

This sort of trash reporting is why viewership and readership numbers for legacy media outlets are swirling the toilet. The turning point for many was during the vile, biased coverage of the Trucker’s Convoy event in Ottawa, and trust in legacy media outlets has only continued to drop ever since.

I was impressed by the attitudes of the people who came out to the event and have nothing but admiration for the gumption and effort made by Landon Johnston. He appears to be a genuine, concerned citizen who decided to get up and try to use the democratic tools at his disposal to make change and good on him! That is true, grassroots activism at its best. It’s too bad Kenny rendered those tools inoperable.

If legacy media outlets went that far out of their way to try to dismiss this movement, the movement must be on the right track.

I still don’t think the petition has a hope in hell of succeeding, but it is engaging people. It is offering Calgarians a means to express their discontent with a terrible mayor and hopefully, those people are networking. The people working on the petition today should be working on the election to replace Gondek next year. They also have exposed just how bad Jason Kenney’s recall legislation is and perhaps it will encourage Premier Smith to fix it.

If you want to help with the petition or just add your signature, click here.

And be sure to share yet another example of legacy media deceiving citizens. Those old institutions need to dry up sooner rather than later.

I think we always knew Naheed Nenshi couldn’t stay out of the spotlight forever. I figured he would pursue federal politics with the Liberal Party as only the Prime Minister’s chair could truly satisfy Nenshi’s outsized ego. Nenshi is also a pragmatist too though and he can see that whoever replaces Justin Trudeau will likely be a placeholder leader sitting in opposition. Naheed doesn’t want to be the next Michael Ignatieff.

With the resignation of Rachel Notley as Alberta’s NDP leader, Nenshi sees an opportunity to strike for the premier’s throne and he is preparing to go for it. While he is a familiar name to most Albertans, not everybody may know him as well as they should.

Nenshi will say or do whatever it takes to win. He presented himself as a conservative when running to be the mayor of Calgary though he was anything but. With some clever campaigning, a split vote, and some push-polling, Nenshi managed to pull off a win. Thanks to the apathy of Calgarian voters, he managed to remain in office for several terms despite bloating the bureaucracy, wasting millions on pet projects, constant tax increases, a dysfunctional city council and pressuring business owners to the point of having them come out to protest at city hall.

Let’s talk about Nenshi’s campaign techniques as he will surely use some of them again.

I used the term “push-polling” because it describes an unprincipled campaign method heavily used in Nenshi’s first campaign. Nenshi’s Weasel in Chief Stephen Carter (pictured below) would always get upset when push-polling was called out for what it was.

Mass dialing systems called Calgarians for weeks with a “poll”. Folks would be prompted to answer a series of questions on several issues using their touch-tone dials. Then, it seemed no matter how people answered those questions, the automated call would finish with a voice telling them that due to their answers, Naheed Nenshi was the best-suited candidate for them. Yes, all roads lead to Nenshi. In a race where people didn’t really know who was who, the dialing was effective in establishing Nenshi as the candidate of their choice.

Not an illegal means of campaigning, but hardly an ethical one.

Political parties don’t officially exist in municipal politics in Alberta. Unofficial parties exist though in the form of unions and activist groups.

One such group that appeared when Nenshi popped up on the political scene was called CivicCamp. The group modeled itself as being a non-biased volunteer group that wanted to help people become engaged in politics. Somehow, every action of the group appeared focused on engaging people to get out to vote for Nenshi.

After the election, CivicCamp continued to “engage” by providing budget presentations to council that amazingly fit into every one of Nenshi’s policy goals. The group then took responsibility for the debates in the next election. Rather than having a conventional mayoral debate where audience members may present questions, CivicCamp provided 12 questions, all of which may as well have been written by Nenshi’s mother. Nenshi had a ready and well-prepared answer for every one of them of course. It was as if he already knew what they would be.

While CivicCamp made presentation to Calgary’s city council and even somehow got a grant from the Calgary Foundation, as far as any records go, the group didn’t exist. It wasn’t registered in any way and not a single person’s name was attached to it. No leader, president, treasurer, founder or anything. It was very odd.

Due the group not actually existing, I took it upon myself to register CivicCamp as a non-profit society with myself as the president. Nenshi and his allies in legacy media were outraged. I was called every name in the book and accused of maliciously breaking up a volunteer group. I had to keep asking, “Who are the volunteers?” Who did I take the group from? Give me a name!

They never provided a name of course. I told media, I would hand over the reins of the entire group if they would just tell me who the president of it actually was.

They never did of course because if the people behind the group were named, the list would look a lot like Nenshi’s campaign team. The group faded away under my leadership I am afraid. Nenshi’s allies would rather let it die than admit they ran the group.

We can expect some groups to suddenly spring up as Nenshi enters provincial politics. I suspect they will be wise enough to register them in some way this time.

Nenshi’s ego and his mouth are his own worst enemies. He will never hesitate to viciously attack rivals and has gotten himself into legal soup multiple times due to it.

The worst was with Calgary philanthropist Cal Wenzel. Nenshi implied that Wenzel was an organized crime figure. That led to Nenshi getting his ass sued and he was eventually forced to apologize to Wenzel, retract his remarks, and pay Wenzel’s legal bills. Taxpayers sat on the legal bill until Nenshi managed to find enough donors to pick it up for him.

Nenshi also went on a bizarre tirade where he lied about sex offenders being placed as Uber drivers while he was riding in a car in Boston. It was recorded and led to fury on the part of Uber of course. Uber didn’t sue Nenshi, but the ride-share company was suddenly fully approved to operate in Calgary after Nenshi had worked hard on behalf of taxi companies to keep them out. I suspect a deal was reached and Nenshi couldn’t afford to lose another lawsuit.

Now, Nenshi is back. He is going provincial.

Look forward to more less than savoury campaign practices, torqued rhetoric, deceptive policy stances and attacks upon opponents from Team Nenshi. That leopard won’t change its spots.

Hopefully, Albertans know what Nenshi is about this time and won’t fall for his empty campaign promises.

Just imagine what he could do with his hands on the provincial leadership. He made enough of a mess as a simple mayor.

Excerpt from The Sovereigntist’s Handbook.

Chapter 8. How to counter common arguments against independence.

Landlocked is not hamstrung.

A common, shallow argument made against western independence is
to claim, “You would be landlocked!” How awful! Why, we could end
up just like Switzerland, only with massive reserves of natural
resources!

Landlocked nations are nothing new and being landlocked doesn’t
mean, by any measure, a nation will be poor or dysfunctional. Austria
is doing well. Hungary and Slovakia are coming along, too, after
having shed the yoke of socialism. Having a coastline doesn’t ensure
stability or prosperity for a nation.

How well have things been working
out for Venezuela, or most African nations? Is Bangladesh nearing
prosperity and has Vietnam enjoyed a history of peace?

A coastline is certainly an advantage for a nation, but it doesn’t
guarantee poverty or riches, peace or conflict. The system by which a
nation is governed is far more important than its geography.

Let’s imagine for a moment Saskatchewan and Alberta both seceded
and united as a new nation under a new system. It would be critical to
the collective economy that natural resources reach foreign markets
and, yes, the new nation would indeed be landlocked. Why, though, is
it assumed Eastern Canada, BC, or the US would block the export or
import of goods and services?

Secession will surely come with some hard feelings and there will be
bumps in the road as new trade agreements are formed, but it’s absurd
to assume the rest of Canada would be so bitter and self-destructive as
to blockade the new nation.

If BC decided to block Alberta and Saskatchewan from getting goods
to the coast, the new western nation would of course immediately
retaliate by blocking BC’s goods from crossing to the East. It would
cripple its ports and decimate its economy. Canada’s remaining
provinces in the East would be in a crunch, too. The impasse wouldn’t
last long, if indeed it ever happened at all.

European nations have trade disputes all the time, but they don’t
blockade and starve their neighbours in order to resolve them. It would
be too harmful for all involved and modern nations simply don’t do
that anymore. The US certainly wouldn’t want to get into a trade mess
by refusing the exchange of goods and services and the flow of people
from the new nation. Economic reality trumps hurt feelings. Just look
at how Europe continues to buy Russian natural gas while condemning
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There are international accords established to deal with landlocked
nations that could be appealed to at an international tribunal, if it ever
came to that. Canada itself could face trade sanctions from other
nations if it acted unfairly against the new western nation.
International trade relies on these agreements being respected and
other nations wouldn’t support Canada’s attempts to starve its new
neighbour into submission.

Let’s not forget we are already landlocked. Canada has allowed
Quebec to dictate pipeline access and has been hostile to western
efforts to seek alternative markets through eastern coastal access. Our
Confederation is already dysfunctional since provincial governments
hinder goods from other provinces under present policies. There is no
free and open trade of oil—or even beer—in Canada. If anything, a
new nation might have more leverage for potential trade agreements
with regions than it did while within Confederation.

The case against independence holds no water on the basis the new
nation would be landlocked.

Buy your copy of the Sovereigntist’s Handbook here!

I know. It sounds odd hearing from a dedicated independence advocate who literally formed an independence party back in 1999 saying we need to stop creating these parties.

Think about that though.

It has been over 24 years since I founded the Alberta Independence Party and neither that party nor the many other independence-leaning parties have made so much as a significant dent in an election. In fact, they are polling so low when they go to the voters, it is embarrassing.

Independence parties keep coming and going and people are investing a lot of political and literal capital into them which could be more effectively directed elsewhere.

Support for provincial independence has been polled as high as 25% and even a little more in Alberta. Independence parties struggle to break 2% when they go to elections.

Last fall, in the constituency of Brooks-Medicine Hat a by-election was held. That is prime territory for independence supporters. The Wildrose Independence Party garnered 0.44% of the vote while the Independence Party of Alberta took 1.77% of the support. Even combined, that is barely enough to be called a toehold of support.

It doesn’t help that independence parties love ripping themselves to pieces with infighting. The Independence Party of Alberta fired, then apparently rehired their leader Artur Pawlowski in the last few months. Likewise, the Wildrose Independence Party split and turfed their leader Paul Hinman and for awhile, they had two boards and two leaders all claiming to represent the party.

As the 2023 Alberta general election approaches, no independence party is in any kind of condition to seriously contest even a single seat, much less the election as a whole.

Support for independence in the West exists and it is ready to be fostered and grown. We won’t hit the tipping point of independence support through an independence party though and we have to quit wasting time on that approach.

Independence supporters need to participate in party politics but they need to do it within existing parties. They are just hitting their heads on the wall by constantly creating and imploding new parties.

Independence-promoting groups are essential and while they may come and go as well, they don’t hinder the movement like parties do.

We need to promote independence as individuals and in groups. Quit pissing around with new parties though. That path has been more than proven as a failure now.

The Sovereigntist’s Handbook charts the path to independence. I have learned from my mistakes and documented them. Let’s quit repeating them.

Get a copy and get to work on productively building the base of support for Western independence that we need. It’s time to start winning for a change.

Progressives will never learn. They will utterly bankrupt a state before admitting their ideology is fundamentally flawed. That’s why Trudeau appears permanently entrenched as Canada’s Prime Minister no matter how many scandals plague him. Central Canada just won’t vote any other way.

There is hope though and we need only look south of the border. The United States has its share of progressive fools and we are witnessing them destroying the entire West coast and the Northeastern seaboard (with a couple exceptions).

Taxes are exploding while crime is out of control in Democrat-run states. California, Oregon, and Washington have allowed their major cities to become war zones due to permissive policies enabling crime and addiction. Chicago, New York and Detroit are enjoying the same situation.

People are voting with their feet and the trend is both striking and inspiring.

Look at the map below and note the clusters of Democrat states in blue.

Now look at the list of states losing population due to interstate migration from 2020-2022.

Almost a million people fled California where Gavin Newsom’s reign of error has decimated the economy and turned the cities into war zones. Businesses and citizens of ambition are getting the hell out while they can.

New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Mayland, Michigan, Ohio…. All losing population. Match that with the map and the trend is pretty clear. Democrat states are driving away their own citizens.

So where are these interstate refugees going?

Well as the image below indicates, the trend is undeniable. They are heading for Republican managed states.

Just look at that. Florida, Texas are taking in nearly as many folks as California and New York have lost. North Carolina appears to be an exception. Arizona was gaining population until 2022 but they just went Democrat so let’s see how that trend holds.

The trend is clear as day. Republican states are drawing in far more interstate migrants than Democrat states.

This will lead to bigger divides. The people fleeing Democrat states sure won’t be voting for more Democrat governments in their new homes. Likewise, the Democrat states having lost conservative citizens, will continue to drift left. Until their economies totally crash at least. When you specialize in gathering the addicted, the entitled and the non-ambitious, your future doesn’t look bright.

Now, back to Canada.

The Western provinces will continue to draw enterprise and the ambitious while Central Canada continues to try and subsidize its way to prosperity. Vancouver has become a dystopian nightmare in the West.

While parts of the West will naturally draw ambitious migrants, it can still do better. Western provinces need to work harder to court new citizens from central Canada. Let’s speed up the process of population redistribution based on values such as ambition, individualism, and personal responsibility.

Western Canada can be the last bastion of common sense and prosperity as the rest of the nation sinks itself with failed progressive policies. We have our share of work to do first though.

We need to flush out the progressive civil governments we have apathetically let entrench themselves in our major cities. They are turning the urban areas into ghettos with their enablement policies and hindering prospective new immigration of both people and capital.

Provincial governments can also do their part by taking over law enforcement and offering policies of addiction rehabilitation and mental health supports to counter the addiction epidemic enabled by progressive politicians. We are already seeing that happen in Alberta as treatment-based policies for addiction have led to a reduction in overdoses while other provinces have seen them only rise. We need to carry on with that path and create safe healthy cities ready to embrace the incoming refugees from progressive cities.

The West will continue to be bled by the East of course. Progressive governments will punish Western provinces for daring to prosper while progressive policies fail in the East.

That is when the independence movement will truly blossom. It’s not a matter of if the West will seek independence, it’s a matter of when. We can’t start preparing for the transition fast enough though.

We need to prepare and build the base required to win a referendum. Part of that will be through drawing in conservative Canadians and part will be through organizing on the ground.

The Sovereigntist’s Handbook charts that path and shows the way. Be sure to get your copy and spread the word.

We can’t save it all but we can save a large part.

Order here.

Did you know if you bought a cow and sold even a litre of milk without being issued a government-issued quota you would be criminally charged?

Did you know if you own more than a few hundred chickens or turkeys and tried to sell the meat without a government-issued quota you would be criminally charged?

Did you know if you tried to become an egg producer beyond having a few hundred laying hens and you sold the eggs without a government-issued quota you would be criminally charged?

All the above statements sound absurd but they are all true in Canada. No other industries are as coddled and protected at the expense of consumers as dairy, poultry, and eggs.

All of these policies fall under a system simply called Supply Management. The name sounds innocuous enough and most people don’t even know what it is. That is just how the dairy cartels like it. As long as Canadians don’t know about how badly they are being ripped off by supply management, they won’t demand an end to the policy. The dairy cartels are very effective political lobbyists.

Once in a while, something brings supply management to the attention of Canadians. This happened recently when Ontario dairy farmer Travis Huigen posted a video showing himself dumping 30,000 litres of milk down a drain because it would be illegal for him to do anything else with it. If he even gave it to a foodbank he would be charged.

It is a stark demonstration of just how horrible and wasteful supply management policies are.

This kind of wasteful dumping has been happening for decades. My wife Jane grew up on a farm that had a small dairy element to it. Her father had a quota for cream, but not for milk. He would skim and sell the cream from his small herd. The remaining milk would be consumed by the family, and dumped in the ditch. A family can only drink so much milk even in a small operation.

Speaking of small operations, those don’t exist anymore. Supply management was supposed to protect the family farm. When supply management was imposed in the 1970s, there were 145,000 dairy farms in Canada. Today, there are less than 9,000. It is big business dominated by cartels and producers who hold those precious quotas.

Smaller farms that may want to diversify their production through poultry or dairy products must by quotas from other producers. Those producers aren’t eager to sell.

Can you imagine any other industry operating like this?

What if you owned a restaurant and had the government ban any other restaurant from operating within ten miles of your establishment?

What if you owned a bakery and the government banned competing bakeries from opening up unless they bought a quote of daily loaves allowable from you?

In such a circumstance, consumers will be screwed by the lack of competition among providers and that’s just what is happening with supply-managed industries.

Producers don’t have the incentives to be competitive or creative when they hold quotas protecting their income. They are artificially protected from having to deal with competitors who may have better ideas and more efficient production methods.

Years ago, it was estimated that the average family was paying $600 per year extra on their grocery bill due to supply management. With the current rate of inflation, that number is likely well past $1,000 now.

The cartels are powerful and it will take pressure for politicians to take this on. During the last Conservative Party of Canada leadership race, I interviewed every contender for the job on my show and made a point of asking about supply management. Only Scott Aitchison had the courage to say the policy had to be ended. What kind of conservative can support such terrible policies?

Conservatives that rely on campaign donations from dairy cartels. That’s who.

Consumers and voters need to wake up and pay attention on this issue. Instead of blaming Loblaws for grocery inflation despite their having only a 3.8% profit margin, have a look at supply management policies.

New Zealand and Australia had similar supply management policies and both nations got rid of them. Dairy cartels howled and claimed it would kill the industry. Instead, the dairy industries got stronger, new export opportunities opened up and the consumers won.

Put the pressure on your politicians. Food security is a complex issue but not when it comes to supply management. The policy is screwing Canadians and the fix is easy.

Dump supply management. Not milk.

On a final note, most of Canada’s dairy operations are in Quebec. That of course explains much of why politicians are terrified to deal with the issue as well.

The Sovereigntist’s Handbook charts the path to breaking free of Canada’s broken system of provincial inequity. Buy your copy direct now!