All of us here at Alberta Proud, love Alberta. Most of all, we love the hard-working folks who make this the best province to live, work and do business in and we're going to keep fighting for you as we head into 2023..Our advocacy is rooted in standing up for small government, low taxes and common sense. We stand up to woke-ism, eco-radical politicians and hypocritical celebrities who spread misinformation that our best-in-the-world Canadian energy, our ALBERTA energy, is anything but. We love our oilsands and the people in it, our farmers and ranchers, our small business owners and our hard-working families trying to make ends meet..As we reflect on 2022, it’s time to tip our hats to all of you for your tremendous support of some of our key campaigns that helped shift real change. Our network, the Canada Strong and Proud Network, reaches hundreds of millions of people every year through social media, emails, phone calls and in-person events with similar pages across the country. Alberta Proud is a lean, well-oiled machine with wheels that keep on turning because of your generous donations. And if you love what we do, get yourself some awesome merch at shop.albertaproud.org..My favourite campaign of the year was our #BackOffOurBeef campaign last summer. Alberta Proud hit the pavement running, standing up to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Ottawa elites who wanted to put surgeon general-style warning labels on our best-in-the-world Alberta beef. Our voices were joined by producer associations across the country, who were outraged that Ottawa set out to do this without industry consultation..Let me be clear, this wasn’t a listing of ingredients, these were ‘warning labels.’ We see this as nothing short of tone-deaf politicking to satisfy the eco-radical agenda to replace beef with fake nutrition that is falsely marketed as “plant-based nutrition” yet contains a long list of ingredients that most of us can’t even pronounce. The impacts of this would decimate our cattle ranching industry, which is a volatile enough with rising input costs and #justinflation carbon tax hikes everywhere we look. The government has backed off for now, but make no mistake — they will continue to promote their bug burgers and will certainly bring this one back..The ’Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act’ being passed was another feather in our cap. Once Premier Danielle Smith stepped into the leadership role and we saw the act take shape, lending our support to this legislation was a no-brainer for us..The act provides us the legal framework to stand up to Ottawa when they hit us with legislation or enact policies that negatively impact Alberta. It's well within the Constitution, it does not give us the ability to separate from the rest of Canada and it does not give the UCP cabinet sweeping legislative powers — this is a false, fear-mongering narrative being pushed by the Alberta NDP and the big union war chest that backs them..Only a month before, Premier Scott Moe announced the Saskatchewan First Act, which protects their province’s resources and mirrors what the Alberta Sovereignty Act will do for us. They paved the way for the West to pushback to Ottawa at a legislative level and for this, we applaud them. If Quebec can do it, why can’t we? We have even had Quebec politicians tout the legislation for us..The act certainly came at the right time as our province is not backing down from Bill C-21, which seeks to ban firearms, including hunting rifles..Hunting and gun associations representing over 2.2 million registered firearm owners from coast-to-coast are up in arms, and rightly so. The Assembly of First Nations and even the NDP and Liberal backbenchers have come together in opposition, as the proposed legislation will not reduce gun crimes, but will unfairly punish law-abiding gun owners, such as duck and deer hunters, and lacks stakeholder consultation..Alberta Proud pushed back hard, launching a petition that has garnered thousands of signatures and counting. This chorus of opposition to Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has resulted in a pause until early 2023. We will keep on this one and encourage you to do the same..Other campaigns we are proud of include our coverage and content-sharing of the Freedom Convoy, standing up to the Trudeau government’s attack on our farmers with their ridiculous fertilizer reduction push, advocating for supplying Europe with our LNG and calling out Trudeau for his failures in this arena, pushing against the Trudeau/Notley/Singh/Legault carbon tax coalition and standing up to online censorship. We also advocate for the innovations in our oil and gas industry such as carbon tech, proving that our oilsands are a global leader in ethical, responsible resource production and that the world needs more of what we have..Working in advocacy is a labour of love, but when you love Alberta as much as we do it fuels a passion to do the right thing. For us, standing up for you is without question the right thing to do..I can’t wait to meet you in the New Year. Stay tuned as we ready to rally around this province, talking to Albertans about what matters to them and encouraging each and every one of you to get out to vote this spring to ensure there is a pro-resource, pro-business government that leads us into our next chapter of prosperity..Lindsay Wilson is president of Alberta Proud
All of us here at Alberta Proud, love Alberta. Most of all, we love the hard-working folks who make this the best province to live, work and do business in and we're going to keep fighting for you as we head into 2023..Our advocacy is rooted in standing up for small government, low taxes and common sense. We stand up to woke-ism, eco-radical politicians and hypocritical celebrities who spread misinformation that our best-in-the-world Canadian energy, our ALBERTA energy, is anything but. We love our oilsands and the people in it, our farmers and ranchers, our small business owners and our hard-working families trying to make ends meet..As we reflect on 2022, it’s time to tip our hats to all of you for your tremendous support of some of our key campaigns that helped shift real change. Our network, the Canada Strong and Proud Network, reaches hundreds of millions of people every year through social media, emails, phone calls and in-person events with similar pages across the country. Alberta Proud is a lean, well-oiled machine with wheels that keep on turning because of your generous donations. And if you love what we do, get yourself some awesome merch at shop.albertaproud.org..My favourite campaign of the year was our #BackOffOurBeef campaign last summer. Alberta Proud hit the pavement running, standing up to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Ottawa elites who wanted to put surgeon general-style warning labels on our best-in-the-world Alberta beef. Our voices were joined by producer associations across the country, who were outraged that Ottawa set out to do this without industry consultation..Let me be clear, this wasn’t a listing of ingredients, these were ‘warning labels.’ We see this as nothing short of tone-deaf politicking to satisfy the eco-radical agenda to replace beef with fake nutrition that is falsely marketed as “plant-based nutrition” yet contains a long list of ingredients that most of us can’t even pronounce. The impacts of this would decimate our cattle ranching industry, which is a volatile enough with rising input costs and #justinflation carbon tax hikes everywhere we look. The government has backed off for now, but make no mistake — they will continue to promote their bug burgers and will certainly bring this one back..The ’Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act’ being passed was another feather in our cap. Once Premier Danielle Smith stepped into the leadership role and we saw the act take shape, lending our support to this legislation was a no-brainer for us..The act provides us the legal framework to stand up to Ottawa when they hit us with legislation or enact policies that negatively impact Alberta. It's well within the Constitution, it does not give us the ability to separate from the rest of Canada and it does not give the UCP cabinet sweeping legislative powers — this is a false, fear-mongering narrative being pushed by the Alberta NDP and the big union war chest that backs them..Only a month before, Premier Scott Moe announced the Saskatchewan First Act, which protects their province’s resources and mirrors what the Alberta Sovereignty Act will do for us. They paved the way for the West to pushback to Ottawa at a legislative level and for this, we applaud them. If Quebec can do it, why can’t we? We have even had Quebec politicians tout the legislation for us..The act certainly came at the right time as our province is not backing down from Bill C-21, which seeks to ban firearms, including hunting rifles..Hunting and gun associations representing over 2.2 million registered firearm owners from coast-to-coast are up in arms, and rightly so. The Assembly of First Nations and even the NDP and Liberal backbenchers have come together in opposition, as the proposed legislation will not reduce gun crimes, but will unfairly punish law-abiding gun owners, such as duck and deer hunters, and lacks stakeholder consultation..Alberta Proud pushed back hard, launching a petition that has garnered thousands of signatures and counting. This chorus of opposition to Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has resulted in a pause until early 2023. We will keep on this one and encourage you to do the same..Other campaigns we are proud of include our coverage and content-sharing of the Freedom Convoy, standing up to the Trudeau government’s attack on our farmers with their ridiculous fertilizer reduction push, advocating for supplying Europe with our LNG and calling out Trudeau for his failures in this arena, pushing against the Trudeau/Notley/Singh/Legault carbon tax coalition and standing up to online censorship. We also advocate for the innovations in our oil and gas industry such as carbon tech, proving that our oilsands are a global leader in ethical, responsible resource production and that the world needs more of what we have..Working in advocacy is a labour of love, but when you love Alberta as much as we do it fuels a passion to do the right thing. For us, standing up for you is without question the right thing to do..I can’t wait to meet you in the New Year. Stay tuned as we ready to rally around this province, talking to Albertans about what matters to them and encouraging each and every one of you to get out to vote this spring to ensure there is a pro-resource, pro-business government that leads us into our next chapter of prosperity..Lindsay Wilson is president of Alberta Proud