If the Alberta Prosperity Project hoped to hold the largest public protest in Alberta history yesterday, as some organizers of the “independence rally” that took place in front of the Legislative Building in Edmonton boasted on social media last week, they came up short.
The turnout at the late-afternoon separatist rally was clearly smaller than last Thursday’s huge demonstration of support of Alberta’s striking school teachers. I can say that with confidence because I wandered through both crowds at their busiest times.
Still, at its height, APP’s demonstration Saturday nevertheless attracted a significant crowd. So a tip of the blue independence ball cap to the organizers, I guess.
Thursday’s protest, while focused on the United Conservative Party’s underfunding of education and refusal to budge in negotiations with the striking Alberta Teachers Association members, also had plenty of evidence of Canadian patriotism – with many Maple Leaf Flags, plentiful petition gathers from the Forever Canadian campaign, and home-made signs condemning the UCP’s focus on fighting with the federal government. Most participants dressed in red.
Yesterday’s demo, of course, had a strong anti-Canadian vibe, with any mention of a Trudeau, father or son, generating automatic catcalls, shouts of No! any time a speaker asked rhetorically if anyone there wanted to remain in Canada, and the usual flags suggesting a need to F this or that Liberal prime minister. Most participants dressed in blue.
Both events’ organizers bused in supporters from out of town, although by the look of the crowd yesterday, almost everyone there came from outside Edmonton.
The speeches yesterday are not really worth trying to quote – passionate claims that Alberta is getting a raw deal from Canada followed by pie-in-the-sky promises that everything will be just grand and we’ll all be big winners if only we set up our own country, become the 51st state, or whatever.
In other words, exactly what you’d expect from a movement drenched in the same post-pandemic MAGA ideology beamed north into Canada as we heard during the 2022 convoy protests that wracked the country. Judging from the homemade signs, COVID-19 vaccination rates were probably pretty low in that crowd too.
Still, I’m surprised and disappointed Edmonton media seems to have paid so little attention to the event – lending some credence to the signs held by many protesters that proclaimed “We are the Media Now!”
The contrast was interesting: Thursday’s red-clad crowd, while angry at the UCP and upset about the dire underfunded state of public education, was upbeat and hopeful. These are people, after all, who by definition value the benefits of education. There were lots of smiles. There were no counter-protesters.
The blue-hatted crowd skewed older, whiter, more rural, more pessimistic, and angrier. There were almost no smiles. And if there had been, none of them would have been directed at the group of counter-protesters who showed up. There were two guys with rude flags on horses, lending a stereotypical Alberta touch to the separatist rally.
On Thursday, a dozen or so Legislature security officers wandered through the crowd.
On Saturday, there was a heavy presence of Edmonton Police and Alberta Sheriffs, with a group of a couple of dozen apparently assigned just to keep the crowd away from the counter-protesters. They certainly weren’t there to enforce Edmonton’s smoking bylaw. Unlike the teachers’ rally, the smell of cannabis, now legal thanks for former prime minister Justin Trudeau, was ubiquitous at Saturday’s protest.
It’s pretty easy to deduce, though, to which group law enforcement assigned the greatest potential for trouble.
It’s important to remember that many of the complaints and fears voiced by members of Saturday’s crowd – as illustrated in this short CBC news clip, the only media coverage of the event I could find last night – are real and legitimate. There were many there yesterday who are not faring well economically under 21st Century neoliberalism, Alberta-style.
They are being told by the people on the steps of the Legislature that everything will be better if only Alberta becomes a landlocked petro-republic or a 51st state of a United States on the verge of civil war – and Donald Trump is anxious to help them. Readers can be the judge of how likely that is to work out well.
Well, at least someone was making bank selling dark blue Alberta flags. So things may not be copacetic in rural Alberta just now, but the entrepreneurial spirit is apparently still alive.
Horses and horses asses, more like!
100%
Well downtown Edmonton sure has been busy recently, although I agree more so a few days ago. I suppose it is something that comes with being the capital, people go here from across Alberta to try make their point.
Of course in the end the party in power will do what it wants, not necessarily influenced by the numbers. However, the numbers do mean something and if a party wants to stay in power they would be wise not to try ignore or dismiss them.
I’m not sure if the anti Trudeau crowd seems to be moving on yet. At least the guy on the horse with the flag seems to have got the memo. However I am not sure Poilievre, who was still going on about RCMP failure to jail Trudeau, has. His being like a general still fighting the last war may not be the best image to present just before his leadership review and seems to be causing a bit more doubt now by CPC members.
Yes, the far right does seem more unhappy and angry than those more who were demonstrating a few days ago. This seems odd given they are much closer ideologically to the current Alberta government and are not being ordered back to work in a few days. However, I suppose they also have their problems too as UCP austerity and bad management is not only hurting the more urban parts of Alberta.
“I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just gonna kill people…We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead.”
That is what Donald Trump said of his attacks on boats in the Caribbean. That is reality. There is no Fantasy Island. That is fiction. Alberta separatists are seriously deluded if they think we’ll be Donald Trump’s chosen people.
Scoundrels. Traitors. I do not support Alberta becoming the 51state. The USA is under Trump and under siege. It’s astonishing that America has not devolved into civil war. Now these Alberta separatists are just like the antagonists from the movie Deliverance. And they well represent UCP. However, thankfully they don’t represent the majority of people who are Canadian first and call Alberta home.
If Alberta separates, we would be low hanging fruit for the US to grab. But I highly doubt they would give Alberta statehood. We would be a territory just like Puerto Rico. No votes, no representation. Trump saying we would be a state is just another con job.
Jane: I agree on all counts. From the U.S. perspective, granting statehood to a former part of Canada would not be to the advantage of the United States. The current president is nuts, so this may not matter to him. Mr. Trump will not always be president, of course, no matter what his supporters wish, so in time some degree of rationality is likely to return to U.S. politics and statecraft. The trick is surviving the Trump era with no idea of how long it’s going to last. DJC
@DJC I dunno why everyone is avoiding the obvious when it come’s to Trump’s “Trade War”
It isn’t a trade war. It’s a bribery scheme. He’s using tariffs as a way to collect personal bribes to have them removed. The White House ballroom fiasco is just another episode in that. It’s supposed to belong to the American people–it’s not Trump’s personal real estate.
China, having been subjected to such bribery schemes in their colonialist past, saw what this was, right off the bat and refused to comply with it.
The fact that Alberta separatists are so stupid they refuse to see that they won’t get a penny from oil extraction as a USA territory or outpost because it will all be paid into this mafia protection racket masquerading as a government is astonishing as they blame the libs for their “corruption” which is penny ante nonsense vs. billions in bribery.
The level of wilful blindness is staggering.
SOOOOOOOOOOOO!! the teachers strike attracted 8 to 10 thousand (police estimates } , while the independance crowd by (police estimates) had over 10000 and as many as 15000 .
i think your headline is quite misleading as is your rhetoric distasteful and skewed in terms of presenting an accurate account of events . I have never seen a friendlier crown ,
However these things are not that relevant!! what concerns me most is the loss of our industries due to net Zero policies. the amount of CO2 not emittted by Canada is completely dwarfed by China and India who continue to ramp up coal and gas fueled industries without any concern for emissions. We continue to send many times more dollars to Ottawa than we get back in funding. As a northern Canadian resident , who lives for a large part of the year in sub zero temps, how will i stay alive when the 2035 goal of no oil , gas, or wood or energy available becomes a reality , that’s only 10 years .
What strikes me most about the Alberta first crowd is that the overwhelming majority are senior citizens , grandparents speaking from experience and Looking out for not themselves but future generations as many of us wont live that much longer anyways , the best motivation i can think of
But but but but but….China and India!!
Seriously, you people need to learn another tune. Preferably one you learned on your own, not from far right wing blog sites masquerading as news
China is decarbonizing faster than any other major country on the planet. Yes, they are still building coal-fired power plants as well — you don’t transform regions still using manure and firewood as fuel overnight — but they are also building out renewable energy infrastructure, and manufacturing electric vehicles, at a level not seen in the so-called “West”.
Remember, China’s population is approaching a billion and a half people, so they need stupendous amounts of energy to support their economy.
You’re retarded. It was quite obvious being at both events which one had WAY MORE people and it was the separatist movement.
Mr. You: Yelling at the author, or his readers, will not change the facts on the ground. This time, the largest crowd by a significant margin, was at the teachers’ demonstration. Next time? Who knows? Perhaps the independence movement will grow and reach new converts, allowing it to attract even bigger crowds, although I will admit to being skeptical about that possibility. To my readers: Usually, I edit or delete profanity and abuse. Sometimes, though, it is useful to see what the mailbag here brings in now and again. It serves a pedagogical function. As things go, this one isn’t all that scurrilous, so what the heck? DJC
There was over 20k ppl at the rally on Saturday and over 80k watching via live streams. Perhaps some journalists should do a better job of reporting facts without obvious bias, showing ACTUAL peak time photos instead of before rally started. I would also suggest easing up on the insults but I’d be kidding myself in thinking a delusional left journalist would be capable of writing a piece without hurling insults. I’m curious as to what color the sky is in your world that you don’t see the collapse of our country under Carney and his clapping seals?! As a hardworking Albertan, I’m tired of giving Ottawa 50% of my pay while me and my family struggle to barely scrape by. I’m tired of being told I live in a democratic society when in reality our votes in western Canada don’t count for shit! Wake TF up, stop wearing your ass as a hat and for the love of God, start being an actual journalist instead of part of the propagandist regurgitation machine.
Faye: You forget. I was there too. There’s no way on God’s green earth there were 20,000 people at that rally. Regarding the timing of my photos, please see my earlier Oct. 26 response to the comment by Alana. DJC
Dear Tammy. You sound just like Trump lying about the size of his rallies among other things.
Faye: You don’t give Mark Carney 50% of your pay. Typical Reformer nonsense. Start with what these phony Conservatives and Reformers did in Alberta, by not collecting the proper oil royalty rates and corporate tax rates of Peter Lougheed, that lost us over $700 billion, and leaving us with a massive oil well mess that is likely $300 billion, while doing the most priciest boondoogles, that flushed yet even more billions of dollars down the drain, while hacking away at public services. As for democracy, that doesn’t exist with the UCP. This is a blog that you are commenting on. Give your head a shake.
You must make a bucket load of money if you are giving 50% to “Ottawa”. Take a look at how much the UCP takes as tax.
There is a crowd size estimation app online at https://www.mapchecking.com/.
I used it to estimate that a tightly-packed crowd — averaging 4 people per square metre — on the big open area in front of the Alberta Legislative Assembly building would be about 9,000, not including those on the overhead walkways to the north of the building. At 2 people/m2, it goes down to 4,350.
For what it’s worth.
What happens when the Democrats take back power? Will you all still want to be Americans? Trump only has 3 yrs left, less than 2 before
Midterms. What’s plan B?
You are a VERY good representation of of the UCP and separatist movement in Alberta…exactly what I would expect.
It is comments like this, and the delusional perceptions, that really makes a reasonable person think twice about the validity of your rhetoric. “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool”
The philosophical arm of maple MAGAs is well represented in the above comment. Every accusation from them is an admission.
Then you are obviously unwell or you can’t count
I’m beginning to think you folks don’t know what an ad-hominem is
F*ck you: Are you ever lost, and quite clueless too. The photographs at both events shows that the rally for public education in Alberta had way more people in attendance at the Alberta Legislature grounds than the deluded separatists.
Wow, FY. Why the vulgarity? Why not post something informative about what life would be like in an independent Alberta. For instance, would we have better healthcare? Would teachers be allowed to strike? Would there be a charter of rights and freedoms?
I too attended both events and your analysis is bang on! Thank you!
Thank you, Andy. As you will see, I am receiving some respectful disagreement from supporters of the independence crowd. DJC
Same knuckle draggers every time. It was amusing to play with them when I lived there, alt-rights seem to be very sensitive. I wonder if those maple MAGAs ever get tired of being suckers and losers?
Honestly, what can you do with these people that keep voting against their own best interests. Yes, some of their tribulation is out of their control but a lot of it is self inflicted. Accountability seems to be an issue with this crowd.
On the subject, there is an incisive article in the latest issue of Alberta Views, discussing the failings of the Alberta Energy Regulator to, you know, actually regulate energy development.
The article, by retired CP journalist Bob Weber, quotes a number of stakeholders, from rural landowners in central and southern Alberta, unhappy with how their land is being treated by the oil and gas industry as well as the AER, to the Rural Municipalities of Alberta.
But my question to all of them — who along with their fellow voters elect UCP candidates with metronomic regularity and near-North Korean supermajorities — is, what did you expect?
The only thing that ever truly gets a politician’s attention is the prospect of being defeated at the next election. But in the parts of Alberta where this issue is most front of mind, UCP MLAs have no fear of this ever happening. So they won’t change their policies, no matter how much complaining their constituents do.
If those people with so much to say in the article were to just loudly declare and proclaim, “keep this up, and we’ll vote NDP, financially contribute to the NDP, and actively campaign for the NDP at the next election”.
If they won’t do that, then I have no sympathy. Oh, and the same applies to local opponents of coal mining on the Eastern Slopes. (Country singer guy*, I’m talking to you). Vote ’em out of office, and the coal mining will stop.
*Sorry, folks, I detest country music, so I can’t remember who it is. But there was one well-known guy who was very public in his opposition.
Jerry: It’s Corb Lund, you’re speaking of, and he’s great. The great Ian Tyson viewed him as a worthy successor. DJC
There you go… thanks for supplying the name :-).
Have to wonder: when Harper et al abolished/sold the Wheat Board some years ago, and Cargill and Continental grain and seed companies took over, was there ever much mention that profits those American companies made/make go south of the 49th in the way of dividends rather back into farmers’ pockets? And who voted for Harper et al in spades? When you build a bed, you need to lie in it!
Bruce: Let’s not forget that Global Grain Group, a Saudi Arabian company, was part of that Harper deal, too. What used to go into Canadian farmers’ pockets now go to prop up the head-choppers, I guess. DJC
The Cargill company may have picked up some of the scraps but the Saudi sovereign wealth fund was the principal buyer of the wheat board, the other major financed was a competitor of Cargill. What I haven’t been able to find out is the extent that Jeffrey Epstein, who was one of the chief financial advisors / hatchet men for MBS (crown Saudi prince and head of the sovereign wealth fund) at the time was involved. But it’s interesting to think about.
Hardly any smiles? Lol I’ve never seen people so happy and optimistic about Alberta’s future. What a trash ️ article!
Mr. Booker: I have pictures. Very few smiles. But maybe you were in another part of the crowd. I did smell a lot of happy gas (legal, thanks to Justin Trudeau) floating over the crowd on Saturday. Unlike the goodie-two-shoes teachers, who didn’t seem to be smoking anything. DJC
Maybe they were paid protesters, with weed as the currency. Weed for the weeds!
Y’all always say the same thing about anyone who disagrees or saw something different than what your ego saw. It’s telling, it’s pathetic, and it’s very boring. Get over yourselves or at least come up with a compelling argument other than ad hominem attacks and character Assassination. You’re angry to a person, disrespectful, spoiling for a fight but crying assault if anyone touches you even for a second.
You want to live in America drive up to the border and declare your intention, hopefully they don’t disappear you, they’re not really big on immigration these days. No one here will miss you.
Well said, Little Bird. I take one exception, though: it should be: drive DOWN to the border (and thence “Down, down, down the dark ladder,” to quote a famous prairie gal who knows a quite a bit about the USA).
But I’ll make an exception for my exception because of your parting shot, “No one here will miss you.” Admirable brevity and accuracy. Thank you!
The pictures I saw made it look like a weight watchers meeting. No one in that crowd is skipping any meals. Mostly just angry white men throwing another temper tantrum.
As usual……those whiteys giving me a bad name…..
good grief you folks are snowflakes..
The maple MAGA reaction to this article means you hit the nail on the head Mr. Climenhaga. The alt-rights appear to be seriously butthurt that sane people noticed their embarrassingly poor showing compared to a group that actually has grassroots support.
Frank booker: These deluded separation folks are anything but positive.
Well good on the teachers and their supporters for showing up in numbers.
The sheer stupidity of the separatists boggles my mind. How they honestly believe that if they set up house alone or join the USA and get to keep that oil revenue they keep claiming belongs to them alone (after the rest of us paid for their pipeline) or believe a single word coming out of the Trump administration (or any other American Empire administration for that matter) is staggeringly ignorant of history.
America is a pure fascist oligarchy at this point. Trump and his cronies are just cleaning out the treasury and collecting their share of the bribes before the USD completely collapses. That’s by design. Because when the American dollar is worthless–so is their debt which the rest of the world invested in them. Multi-nationals including Big Oil don’t care–it will increase their bottom lines.
We need to be careful here because we have all sorts of energy and minerals the USA needs to run their war machine. And if anybody is naive enough to think they won’t take it by force–best look at Iraq’s oil fields and see who is benefiting from the profits.
The Americans do not need to take anything by force in Canada. The “pragmatic centrists” in Canada have ensured that the population has gone along with the US empire for the last eighty years. Despite the Himalayan-scale mountains of evidence of the US military-finance-intelligence complex assault on all of humanity, people still regurgitate the term “conspiracy theory” to soothe their cognitive dissonance when any attempt at assesing this global counter-insurgency is made. The US has always been run by an oligarchy that manifested the principal elements of fascism. I wish I could claim credit for this line, “The Founders imagined themselves as Deist Medicis overseeing a claque of subsistence farmers who bought each other’s sisters with liquor and millet”, because it is the simplest and truest characterization of the US I have ever seen. This is the state that stole Ohio, and Hawaii and Montana and Texas and California through overt conquest. They have attacked more than one hundred different countries, used nuclear weapons, and they are the most important military and economic “partner” of Canada. Their war machine is undeniably our war machine.
Murphy: Personally, I think it was Mel Brooks who came up with the simplest and truest characterization: “You gotta remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the New West. You know … morons.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYTQ7__NNDI DJC
@Murphy,
Again, we’re in agreement, here.
We’ve been supporting, with our resources, the American war machine for almost a century. We’re 100% complicit in their endless array of war crimes marching across the globe.
Which is why we have zero useful weapons against them although any country next to an empire knows they quietly need them as an emergency plan and are far more careful in “joint training missions” than we’ve been. They also tend towards having civilian training and readiness as part of the societal preparedness. Just ask Finland.
China did what we didn’t. They shut off Trump’s ability to profit from the war machine by withholding rare earths.
They may not need to invade, but if we are not careful, they will anyway.
Why buy the cow when you can steal the milk for free?
There was actually a very large police and sheriff presence on Thursday. Sheriffs from all over the province were called in because of the expected (and met) crowd size. Every interaction I saw or participated in with any of the law enforcement agents was friendly and cheerful. They mostly helped people know where to go, where to find services, and other such helpful tidbits. We were extremely thankful for all the officers who were there.
Melissa: Well, I was at both and while there were a few more Sheriffs officers walking around than on a normal day on Thursday, there were vastly more police visible on Saturday. Moreover, significant numbers of police were parked in the area of the old General Hospital on Jasper Avenue, presumably in the event they were needed. My office is in that area and there was nothing like that on Thursday. DJC
Don’t know what you’re talking about. There were 3x as many people as this, I was there. This photo must have been from before the rally started. Nice try. Propaganda.
Alana: As noted, I was there too. The timestamp on the photo of the independence rally that you believe must have been taken before the rally started was 4:25 p.m. This was almost half an hour after the official start of the rally and during Dr. Modry’s speech. An uncropped copy of the photo, which as you can see makes the crowd looks even smaller than the way I presented it on the blog, is found here: https://davidclimenhaga.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/Uncropped.jpeg
Here is another photo taken just before the rally’s halfway point, that is, at 4:52 according to the timestamp: https://davidclimenhaga.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_2187.jpeg This illustrates that the size of the crowd did not change much during the subsequent half hour.
Finally, this photo was taken a few seconds later using my phone’s telephoto view. While this one does make the crowd look smaller than it really was (which is why I didn’t use it) it also illustrates that there was no one standing in the area behind the empty wading pool, which was full of people during the teachers’ demonstration. https://davidclimenhaga.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/Longest-view.jpeg
@DJT
Don’t mess up their fantasies with facts. What’s wrong with you? /s
Alana: Math must be hard for Reformers to understand. The teachers rally had way more people.
Its pretty sad that the UCP finds it so easy to mindcontrol this particular sector of the population. These people just believe the “villain” is whoever the UCP points to- despite the fact that it is the UCP who is most to blame for these people’s situation. And while this happens, the UCP is steadily dismantling Alberta democracy bit by bit, and replacing it with their *own* version of how society should work. It’s a pretty handy distraction tactic and I feel bad for these folks, who are just a handy human smokescreen for the social engineering that the UCP has underway.
For the most part, grumpy looking old white men with a scattering of grumpy young white boys and girls.
Judy: And I, a Master of Disguise™ was there, counting, aided enormously by the fact I am a grumpy looking old white man, with the standard GOWM white beard. Add a ball cap and, presto, total invisibility! DJC
My office in the Haultain building faced the Leg. Based on the long range picture in David’s article, the size of the separatist crowd was about the same as the many “no name” protests I would see from my office window.
Thanks, LAS. I want to say that I was sincere in saying that this was a good crowd. And it’s difficult to estimate the size of crowds at that location because of the high number of passers by in transit, supporters who come and go, and the difficulty counting people on the fringes. I think there have been a number of rallies recently that have been overestimated, including by the police. My gut tells me there were about 8,000 people there on Saturday, maybe 10,000 max. I was willing to go with the higher number. I have been to many, many rallies at the Legislature over the past 25 years and this would be in the top 25% or 30%. That is not easy to do. But there’s no point for the APP crowd to act butt-hurt because because a bunch of teachers got a much bigger crowd out two days before. The difference is visible. Jeffrey Rath claimed on Twitter/X that teachers were told they’d be denied strike pay if they didn’t show up. He seems to have missed it that the striking teachers are getting no strike pay. Another APP supporter claimed independence rally supporters drove themselves to their demo while the ATA rented buses. True, the ATA did rent buses. So did the APP, though. We know who paid for the ATA’s, but who paid for the APP’s? How many were on each? Beats me. But the biggest is the biggest and it wasn’t Saturday’s independence protest. DJC
I think 8,000 is likely 10x the actual number. I too was there and my rough count was 800ish. Definitely less than 1,000 – it wasn’t impressive at all and you’re right – overwhelmingly male and over 50.
To quote Rachel Notley, “Here in Alberta we ride horses, not unicorns, and I invite pipeline opponents to saddle up on something that is real.” From a statistical perspective the proportion of Albertans who ride unicorns would not be much different from that of the proportion who ride horses compared to those who ride neither, but I know there was some prog wisdom somewhere in that pandering.
Perhaps there’s something in this observation: “From Rube to Roob
Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote Revolt of the Masses in 1930. In it he described something that puzzled him: scholars were beginning to have trouble being heard above the noise of uninformed men who brazenly presented their opinions as if they were fact. …Half a century later Roger Price wrote The Great Roob Revolution (1970), which finally gave this phenomenon a name. He invented the name Roob in order to make an important distinction: the country bumpkin was a “rube” out of innocent ignorance of good manners from lack of exposure to the customs of urban living, whereas the Roob was obnoxious for insisting that his stupid ideas should not be questioned. Both the rube and Roob were insufferable, but for different reasons. Price clarified the argument that it was the Roob’s growing wealth that was the principal force that gave his opinions power.” The other day I found a copy of Kevin Taft’s “Shreding the Public Interest”, which is now just about thirty years old. Taft, hardly an anarchist or communist, showed beyond the shadow of a doubt that Alberta was awash in money, and that it was controlled by a plutocracy and their degenerate puppets in the political apparatus of the province. Which has produced similar conditions to those seen in Weimar Germany and in the post-1972 US. “Early in the 21st Century household income for the Middle Class began to shrink. But how many of these financially desperate people in America are Roobs? Recall the definition of a Roob. He’s someone who doesn’t trust what educated people have learned through centuries of inquiry, by observing the way the world is and using disciplined thinking to figure things out. The Roob prefers to search inside himself for an inner truth. And if he has achieved wealth sometime during his life, his inner truth will have been vindicated, and no other person,regardless of his learnedness, and in spite of his learnedness, can change his mind.”
http://brucegary.net/roob/18.06.05.04%20roob%20internal.pdf
Who is this Bruce Gary? http://brucegary.net/resume.html
Certainly, he’s no owner-operater of a hotshot trucking outfit hauling flanges between Nisku and Grimshaw for $2500 a trip, that’s for sure!
This APP/separatist gang sure seems to be fickle. Just a few short months ago they wanted to have sex with Justin Trudeau and now they have switched their attraction to Mark Carney. Come on guys maybe think about going home with the guy that brung you.
If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with. Do-do-do-do-do-do-doodoo. Do-do-do-do-do-do-doo-doo. Do-do-do-do-do-do-doo-doo. Something like that.
That kid on the horse wasn’t even able to vote for or against Trudeau. The grin on his face at being able to cosplay like the adults from his community shows without a doubt he was born into it, and never had a chance of escaping. That looks like an elder family member to the left, he’s probably the one who owns the horses, or at least the trailer. Good to see alberta rednecks haven’t changed in the nearly thirty years since I left small minded small town alberta.
Bird: I am a Master of Disguise™ so I see all and hear all. They came in separate trailers. The horses, I mean. DJC
It’s crazy that Danielle leaned hard into the separation talk after she got back from that meeting she had with the Atlantic council. Weird that they kept that under wraps for so long. It’s not like the Atlantic council is one of the cias favourite “think tanks” or anything like that.
The MAGA crowd and their masters, PP etc really do seem to be living in the past. On and on about Trudeau! Really? I really appreciate the 2 pictures of the crowds. The contrast is stark and clearly, to my mind, shows the division in Alberta. As you point out, education vs leaving HS at 16 to work on the oil rigs.
Wow. This isn’t partisan at all. . I wonder if the Alberta independence rally had unions and taxpayers funding hundreds of buses from all over if the independence protest would have been larger. This was completely organic. People came from all over Alberta, on their own. It was amazing. Much better than the bought and paid for teachers rally.
Actually people were bused in on Saturday as well – the difference being that the teacher busses were paid for by Canadian unions and the separatist buses by who knows who? I suspect there is American influence and American money at play with them.
I support the teachers…and Canada
Me too.
Michelle, both-sidism is highly overrated. It does the thinking for the Roobs (see above by Murphy) by formulating their arguments for them and then reinforcing the arguments in the well-established populist practice of “repeat, repeat, repeat”. However, in the spirit of both-sides, I would echo back to you, “I wonder if the Alberta independence rally (pardon my gagging) had taxpayer funding from Dani and dirty money from the US?” No question, though, that the separatist gathering was “amazing”—the joy on the faces in the pictures and the diversity of those in attendance says it all.
precisely!!! Plus over 80k watching livestreams. What an amazing sight to look out at a sea of Alberta flags amongst such an enormous crowd all smiling and filled with hope. And as you said, no one was paid, (or threatened by a union).
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
/sorry this alt-right dreck is too much….
Michelle LM: Education would have benefitted these separatist fools. Alberta can’t separate, but they don’t that.
What taxpayer funded buses ? The UCP is the current government in power. You know the one the teachers were protesting AGAINST. Try to keep up.
What’s a nice horse like you doing in a place like this?
I continue to be baffled by Alberta separatists want to join the U.S. The obvious question “why are you still here then?” remains unanswered. Perhaps it is their desire to keep enjoying our social benefits. This must create an incredible mental dichotomy, right up there with Orwell’s “DoubleThink”.
My question to the separatists would be:
Would you still want to ‘join’ the US if a democrat was president? Conversely, would you still want to ‘leave’ Canada if a conservative was prime minister? I’m guessing I know the answer…
This is proof that we need to do better at educating Albertans.
Watching the crazy unfold at the Alberta FreeDUMB protest does bring to mind how far society has fallen. I have no doubt that this crowd would surely cheer US tanks rolling over the border, they would also join a fifth column of armed support. While I have no doubt that Type I diabetes and hypertension will surely wipe out this ground before armed combat every would, I looked over the crowd and had no doubt that these are the dumbest of the dumb. True blue idiots, every last one of them. And the abundance of obviously single elderly men and unwashed young incel gamers, gives pause that this movement is loaded with the truly weird. Make no mistake about, they believe Trump isn’t a pedophile, but they are convinced Tom Hanks is one.
Looks like what it is…….MAGAseeds
This would have been the perfect opportunity to sell time shares or meme coins.
All the most gullible people in the province, all in one location, filled with cognitive bias ready to outsource their decision making? It’s a goldmine, no wonder the conservative establishment has been so successful in milking these folks so throughly.
David, I think I want to challenge you on the idea that members of Saturday’s rally dressed in blue. Based only on the photos you posted, I would argue that there was no coordinated colour of clothing. I think instead the blue colour you picked up on was just the Alberta flags so many of the participants were carrying.
You were there, I wasn’t, but from the photos it looks like all the flags are the same size. Was that your impression? The probability of a thousand people all happening to buy the same sized flag are astronomically small, leaving me wondering if the organizers sold flags (and only offered one size) as a fund raiser, or if the APP is so well funded that they can afford to give the flags away.
Thanks for all the work you do.
Bob: I do feel the predominating colour of the clothing was blue, but it might have just been the denim pants they were wearing. As to the flag question, as acknowledged in the last line of the post, someone (presumably the organizers) was doing land office business selling flags in a tent near the old Federal Building. Or maybe they were giving them away. I didn’t check. This is an example organizers of progressive events should follow. DJV
Yes but a union had to threaten to dock strike pay for any teacher who did not show up whereas the independence parade was strictly vuluntary.
Peter: ATA members do not receive strike pay and, even if they did, the bureaucracy involved in such a policy would have made it impossible. Think about it, sir, how would you determine in a crowd of 20,000 to 30,000 people whether or not a particular member showed up? Regardless, in the case of ATA, no member is getting strike pay. Not a single one! So it would be hard to withhold something that doesn’t exist. I don’t fault you for believing this, though, because Jeffrey Rath made this claim on social media. Presumably he was misinformed or misunderstood how ATA operates. The only other explanation I can think of is that he just made it up. DJC
The teachers Union threatened that they would dock strike pay for all those teachers that did not show up. The independence crowd was voluntary.
Y’all will believe literally any easily disproved claim that fits your (angry, bigoted) worldview huh ?
The same crew that drove to Ottawa during covid…….the same crew that pitched trailers and tents in ditches……the same crew that amass in front of the legislature……Blue flag waving MAGAs?……your neighbour’s outside of the city states pretending they have the all the white answers….the always complaining farmer and ranchers and oil men…..forever bitching that life in the old times was better…..Really say I…..????…..really say those always with a hand out or a hand up……rural alberta seems to be a breeding ground for hate these days….maybe it was always this way and it’s just a survival instinct of past generations passed down for no other reason………this seems to be hate against all except CONMAGA……..but when times are tough and theres help available…..they will gladly take that help from ALL………so really its pointless to pay any heed to the oh “look at me” needy…….it really is……lets just call it what it is…..a complete waste of BLANK time……now move over we got an economic enemy on our south border rising up……so Elbows Up…..see ya at the legislature……
Rural Alberta was always a breeding ground for hate and bigotry. Proof: Jim Keegstra and anyone from southern Alberta.
The KKK was only unsuccessful in alberta for two reasons; first, their views (anti-Catholic bigotry, racism, and a strict fundamentalist version of “Christianity”) were pretty popular already, especially with the orange order, so they weren’t really needed for anything. Second, AND THIS SHOULD BE AN ILLUSTRATIVE LESSON FOR “ALBERTA SEPARATISTS”. THEY WERE AMERICANS, and Yankee Doodle Dandy has never been welcome in Alberta. Get the hell out if you hate the country so bad losers.
Onto the matter of crowd sizes, I still am amazed why they (you know who they are) always swear their crowds are the largest ever. Trump started in, going on about the enormity of his crowd sizes. But in Trump’s case, it’s more of a Freudian obsession he harbours. But with these groups, it’s centred around a perverse desire to form into a larger community of crazies. They want to bond with other crazies, so they don’t feel so alone. This is a harbinger of a growing and deep mental health crisis, that will impact Canadian politics unlike anything ever seen before.
I am reminded of my RPC days and noted that there were more than a few loose nuts in the room. I recall at a certain MP’s town hall meetings, there was a proposal from the floor to “exterminate” the population of Quebec. The MP fell into a moment of awkward silence, before someone yelled, “Make nukes and use them.” No question, the Reform crowd was weird, but it was unforeseen that they were a glimpse of the things to come. Now, the Convoy crowd calls those who have regular jobs and the usually daily concerns “Sheeple” and “Normies”, and they do it with a tone that promotes extreme derision and hatred. This is the future. Get used to it.
The Reform Party was using (checks notes) a violent white nationalist gang for event security for around a year before people caught wise to it and they had to disavow. One of the founders would later die in a hail of bullets in a cocaine deal gone wrong. (The skinhead gang, not the reform party)
I too agree with the separation of the old grey dudes BUT with one big caveat. To wit: All the supporters of separation must relocate to that tiny chunk of land north of the present Canada-US border that somehow escaped the Louisiana Purchase. That’s right kids. The French and Americans left on the table a small plot that could be home to two hundred separatists.
Just think. A new land of grain, cows and coal. A land without any rules or government overreach. Paradise in other words. Sail on.
What is missing is press secretary Bruce McAllister insisting the independence rally was the biggest in history. Point final!
It’s curious because, otherwise, UCP MLAs have certainly been learning their alternative facts.
Thank you, DJC, for the sterling reporting.
I concur with you and with David. Trump and Smith are rife with alternative facts. Alberta is an enigma until you begin to unpack the Social Credit movement (1935), then the Christo Fascist movement is easier to understand. That is why Alberta is such fertile soil.
Mr Climenhaga, I am also wondering why there isn’t any more coverage of this event but my search brought me to you! As a Forever- Canadian canvasser I was very interested in hearing this side of the story. I did listen to the second half of the live feed speeches – very interesting. For one things, Jeff Rath advises everyone to boo the Canadian anthem at the next Oilers game – you must have heard that. The rest seemed to be a lot of promises and no real plan. Thank you for your article.
So is it just me or does the guy in the Alberta magat hat look like Ralph Kline (nix the glasses)..?
Of course the separatists say their crowd was larger; they don’t know how to count; especially if they believe anything that Mr Rat(h) tells them after being censured for the 2nd time in the last couple of mths about his “professional” conduct.
I’m in on the ‘Rood’ people, with a conundrum…..all the farmer types who obviously haven’t been paying attention to d’rump sidelining the ‘murcan farmers in favour of Argentinian ones, and the ranchers who are watching beef coming in from Brazil. ( d’rumps attempt to lower the cost of beef)
I also wonder if the people who came in on buses were day tripping from Saskabush?
Heck a free trip to Edmonton, the mall, ( sidebar- were the Oilers @ home?) big city lights!!
Whoop whoop!! This could also explain the unhappy faces when they found out they were supposed to shell out for the flags. D’rump has no qualms whatsoever about fleecing his supporters with ‘merch’ , anymore than Skippy does. **
Skippy on X…”If you want to fix this….sign here ”
The photo that was used still has me laughing. $ 3 million was already used to “fix that” ,plus an extra $2+m for the by and you still have mini-me looking to take away more taxpayers money by getting them to hand it over without the benefit of tax receipts.
One final thought, if the numbskulls were to separate a portion of Alberta away Canada would there flags that they bought not become redundant?
It seems to me that they are waving the flag of a province of Canada, if they become independent/separate that would have to change.
Randi-lee: It’s not the ghost of Mr. Klein. DJC
I think it is important that these Maple MAGA Separatists have presented to them the Federal benefits they receive and how the UCP disburses those funds and assistance. At the same time the outgoing equalization payments and expense should weighed as well.
The oil pipeline that Trudeau just pushed through from Alberta to Burnaby BC, paid for by all Canadians through their taxes is ignored despite it being the UCP’s largest complaint that a new pipeline must be built.