The Other Side of the Story with Daryl Cooper

Daryl resigned from the Provincial Sask. Party candidacy in Saskatoon for liking some tweets on Twitter from self-identified QAnon followers. He tells us his side of the story and what it's like to be cancelled.

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Transcript

Coffee Breath Conversations: 0:01

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Coffee Breath Conversations. I'm your host, Russell Barton. And before we get started today, just quick housekeeping, just want to thank everyone that's been tuning into the podcast. It's very appreciated. This episode here with Darrell Cooper is definitely going to be one of my favorite episodes, I think it'll be one of your favorite episodes as well. So if you enjoy it, feel free to leave some feedback on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, just look up Coffee Breath Conversations, and let me know what you think. I'm always looking to improve. I'm always looking for new guests. So let me know. And with that, let's get started.

Unknown: 0:52

Alright, folks, welcome back to another episode of Coffee Breath Conversations. I'm your host, Russell Barton. And today in the studio, I have my guest Darrell Cooper. Darrell Cooper was running for the sass party when, unfortunately, he couldn't run for the sass party anymore. And he's in the studio today to tell us what happened. So welcome to the podcast, Darrell. Thanks, Russell, and thanks for having me. And before we get started, let's hear a little bit more about you. Tell us about yourself. Well, just a little bit about my background. Okay. So while I, I'm 59 year old, I was I always told everybody at the door. I'm a 59 year old rookie politician. And I spent 38 years in finance. I was 14 years as a banker, and 24 years I owned and operated Cooper Wealth Management investment firm and Saskatoon sold my business in January of 2019. I grew up in a small town farm boy 60 miles south as a student of an agricultural background as well. I have five adult children and two and a half grandchildren. I've lived in Saskatchewan my entire life.

Daryl: 2:03

Before we get to our main topic, you know you were into banking, you had a successful business things were going good. Why the switch to politics? Well, I'd spent 30 years in finance and it was time for me to do something different. And so I thought, well, I'm going to take six months off, I had some opportunities to do some consulting work and other offers. In the finance field. I also had some pet projects with regards to small businesses that weren't maybe big moneymakers, but something that I was really interested in its and passions for. So I just wanted to kind of sort myself out of how to take six months off, go around, see some old friends, some relatives from around the around the country, then after six months, start up whatever I was going to do next and kind of sort things out. I was when you sell a business people have told me this is that or when you retire, is all of a sudden you're going for something you've done for 38 years, you're in a social circle all the time. And all of a sudden you're home alone. And you're just like, it's a real shock to the system. Let's put it that way. I was basically watching TV, which I did. I never really watched very much television. And it happened to be when the SNC lavell. And scandal was going on. And the Jodi Wilson raybould testimony and and that whole thing that was in February of 2019, I believe. And I'm watching that and I'm just appalled with the whole thing. Nope, just a little background. My grandfather was a member of parliament in decent Baker's government from 58. He was a it was an MP from 58 to 65. And so politics has always been something that I've been interested in I never really considered or thought that I was ever going to run politically. But I'm sitting there watching the treatment that Jodie Wilson raybould was getting and I was I was just appalled at the at the corruption the cover up the nonsense that was going on and so impressed with her, you know, with her courage and her strength. And I'm like, you know, there's room for more honest people in politics. I'm not saying that there isn't a lot of honest people don't get me wrong. I maybe I worded that wrongly. But I think everybody knows what I mean that I that I believe that I had something to offer. I had a lot of life experiences, you know, I mean, experiences that only 59 years of life can give you. My children were growing up and I had the time. So that's what led me to get into politics is to initially out of respect for what she was doing and wanting to bring that type of and my background into into the province. So what would have been some of your key platforms? It's interesting. Yes. Because I have a very curious mind. And I've always been a curious person. I always joke that I was one of those. When you were a kid, you lay back in the grass and look up at the sky. And look at the clouds. I was always when we were looking up and you know, you'd see, you know, there's a horse, there's an, and I'd always be the kid would go, what's up? They're like, what's what's beyond that, right? And the most of my friends would just be like normal kids, they would just be jump up and go, who cares and run away? Right? So from a curiosity point of view, when I started into the political field, I really wanted to, I couldn't think of a better job for me as I got going through the process of serving my province in this last chapter of my life, because at 59 years old, yeah, there's lots of other things you can do. But I mean, I have, I've just loved my province, the whole life and my whole life. And I thought, Man, what a What a great opportunity to serve. Now, that just maybe sounds a little bit corny, but as as I was going door to door, and so the process was for me, and maybe one of you. I don't know, if you want me to expand on that now. But sure, the process could sort of leads into, you know, made a few phone calls, see what federal politics say about provincial politics. And I've always believed that you could have a bigger impact provincially even more so than municipal to be honest with you and a lot more than you can't federally especially being from Saskatchewan, where we, you know, we have a limited was a john diefenbaker, probably our last most important maybe Ralph Goodale, I suppose for the Liberal Party, too, but provincial politics, there was a fit. And I started through the nomination process, sold about 150 memberships in the first five or six weeks, so ended up getting the nod for the for the nomination by acclamation by June of 2019. So maybe I was a little bit longer answer than you then you wanted. But so what would have been some of the key things you would have worked on in Saskatoon? Right? Right. So that's what you asked me for. So as I was going door to door, that's where I was leading to. Thanks for bringing me back there is that. So the first thing I did after I got my nomination is in July 1, I started knocking the doors. I hadn't done a lot of door knocking before I'd worked on campaigns before, but not thinking, to the extent that I was going to be doing this and you're pretty well, by yourself, I did have some volunteers come out. And you know, they would help out. But I mean, look, we were a year and a half away from an election. But I wanted to go out and beat the people of the obsessed tuneecu. So I made a goal to knock every door by September long weekend, I did it tight, but Labor Day classic football game, I was done before that and went to watch the Liberty classic with my family. And as I went door to door, I was hearing it, it's a great experience, if you've never done it, I recommend everybody do it. I've even told my children, I said, you know, at some point in time, you need to really do this as part of a as a growth thing, as part of your growth. And it was interesting to find out how many different topics people had, how many interests they had. So I started keeping a list of things that I thought were important for the province, you know, and of different people's views. And you know, some of them, you really can't fix but there's a lot that were there's a lot of commonalities. If I really had to put it in a nutshell, I think that there's when it really got down to it, there's I sort of created my own position, I thought I could be the the Minister of transformation and innovation. Because I look at our institutions that are looking at healthcare, I look at education, I look at justice, and I look at social services, those four institutions, it doesn't matter what stripe of government that's been in power in provincially, or federally right across the country. Nothing has much changed in those four institutions in the last 7080 years. Other than the idea is that just keep throwing more money at it. And so I thought, you know, we need to look at things like best practices. And that was one of my key areas. The other thing, of course, is with my finance background, that creating in creating more incentives for people to set up shop in Saskatchewan and keeps the sketch from growing and keeps us gatchaman strong. Because when I was when I graduated from high school in 1979, everybody was leaving the province like 75% of my graduating class moved to Alberta. Well, wasn't there saying, make sure you turn the lights out when you leave or something like that. Yeah, well, that was just it. Yeah. And, and then, you know, our highways were in rough condition. And it was, you know, it was we never really felt like we were able to do anything in this province. And that was from, you know, so many years of, of the NDP government, to be honest with you, like it was years and years of well intended, socialist programs that weren't working for the province. And so I thought those were, for me anyways, was important to keep Saskatchewan growing, because, you know, I look at the history of Saskatchewan and I'm a bit of a history wonk. And I look at somebody like Brad wall. Brad wall was fantastic. He was the right man at the right place.

Unknown: 10:00

At the right time, right, we had a, we had a commodity boom going on. He came in, and he put us on the map. And he gave us, he gave us a swagger that we've never had before in this province. That confidence, he put us on the map. And he, he took our province from everybody leaving to Saskatoon at one point in time, and it still may be the youngest city per capita in Canada. And that was unheard of 20 or 30 years ago. Yeah, so those were things that I wanted to bring to the province, just to, I always told the people at the door that if I can help help in some small way, or some larger way that whatever, whatever is called upon me, I was I was ready to do that. In the end to Russell, it was kind of interesting. When I say near at the end, I was really getting my stride and getting feeling like you know, I always feel like if you're going to do something, you have to act like you've already you're already there. So that was what right from the beginning. I you know, I acted as if I was the the MLA I wasn't I wasn't act i wasn't actually doing MLA duties. But I was, I was servicing the people that I was knocking on doors, I was bringing the attention to do the current MLA or when it was when the constituency was was it was empty. Because we of course, we didn't have an MLA for a full year. And we still don't have one in Saskatoon, these few was bringing it to the MLS that were in charge. And I found that part to be also very fulfilling, because I've been in service all my life with a financial financial business and being in service to the people and helping them was so gratifying because I would get so many, just just the feeling of doing something for somebody and getting that Thank you. It really meant a lot. I was reading the news looking for some new stories to cover for my podcast. And I came across a interesting news story was about someone running for politics and Saskatoon, the new story by CBC, through press progress had said that this candidate had resigned from running for the sask party because they'd like some tweets on Twitter related to a group called q anon. Now for people that don't know, who q anon is queuing on is this ideology that kind of spawned from a message board on the internet, there's message board is called 4chan, basically, the idea was is that someone was connected to the government somehow at a high level, they call themselves Q, and that they were going to expose government corruption in the United States ever going to the United States, I called it drain the swamp of all the corrupt politicians. And over time, this idea of Q kind of grew into this collective agreement to this big idea, not that much different than an Tifa really, but just on a different kind of ideology. people that follow Q and on a lot of them are just normal everyday people that kind of think that there's a little bit too much funny shenanigans going on in our government, that there's too many politicians that are connected to people like Jeffrey Epstein and, and really kind of unsavory characters. Now, just like an Tifa. This idea, some people take a lot more seriously. And over time, they've started to kind of subscribe to other things, too, that the government's lying about all sorts of different things. And also with q anon, there's even the extremists. And these are the people that believe that Donald Trump or whoever the conservative of the day is, is going to save the United States from pedophiles and Satanists, and all sorts of stuff. But again, just like any ideology, there's people that followed at a low level, people are just interested. And then there's people that are on the extreme ends. I mean, we're not here today to really talk about the validity of that subject matter. Because I mean, even a broken clock can be right twice a day. It's not really for us, I guess, in the context of this conversation to discuss whether or not any of those people that follow that ideology or that idea are right or wrong. The news story that I'd heard was that you would like to few tweets by people that follow this ideology. And then press progress had put out this article, saying that you would like these tweets that you were sharing stuff from this ideology, and that it was dangerous and that, you know, this ideology is connected to extremists and all sorts of different things. It's almost like guilt by association. So that's kind of what I heard about. It looked like another hit piece by a left leaning organization. against a conservative. So I covered in my podcast, I did a little bit of research on it. To me it was quite interesting that this article Saskatchewan, who cares about Saskatchewan, right in the in the national context, this small time, sass party person running in Saskatoon, you got over 10 different articles posted about you from all the left leaning news organizations and I made a blog post I listed a whole bunch of them and there's even more in French I can't read. So it's it to me, I found a very interesting King, a few tweets on Twitter led to how many news articles being kind of attributed to your name, and to this sort of weird story linking it right back into Q anon. So, with that background in mind, you know, we haven't really had a chance to hear your side of the story. What really happened, but let's take you back to the RIT was dropped on Tuesday, Wednesday, there was a hit piece put out that you did talk about and that was came from Twitter somewhere on Twitter. I don't know where. But it was a hit piece that I was told was put out by a NDP operatives. That's That's all I was told. And it was making accusations that of a Facebook post that I did with regards to the source of the Coronavirus. So I don't know if you read that part too, because press progress have talked about that. I'll get to the q&a thing in a minute here. But I just wanted to kind of put things in order, if that's okay with you. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so, during the COVID corrente. I, I just I just finished telling you I got a curious mind and I wasn't sitting around watching you know, just watching Netflix, right that wasn't bingeing on Netflix, I was going for walks, going for runs, couldn't go to the gym, the gyms were closed, I like to go to yoga, and do a little bit of working out and cross training. So I couldn't do a lot of that. And I was getting kind of lazy at home not doing it. I was doing a lot of research. And I read three books, which are listed in my press release. I'll get into those if you ever want to talk about them. But get right to the point with you're talking about the hit piece that was put out on Wednesday was with regards to post that I put with regards to the different conspiracy theories surrounding the coronavirus. Now, I didn't call them conspiracy theories. But I do have a sense of humor that maybe people don't always catch on to and I was trying to make light a little bit light of some of them. Like for the my first one that, for example. That was I think there were six or seven that I listed there on my personal page, but somehow they had manipulated it to make it look like it was on my campaign page. Now. I don't care Darryl Cooper's Darrell Cooper I mean, I don't know like why we have separate pages and all that sort of stuff. I it doesn't matter to me. I'm usually an open book on things. I really don't try to hide things if I'm going to post something on there. I mean, it's, it's for there for the world to see for the life of me. I mean, you know, the party, the SAS party, I'm sure the NDP are doing that they're kind of monitoring you daily. And this was something that obviously was that they didn't think was a big deal. And I certainly didn't think it was or I wouldn't have wouldn't have posted it. I didn't think it was controversial whatsoever. Because what I did is I my first one was well, One theory is that somebody ate a bat, right? And then I said, You know, I have trouble swallowing that, I guess. And that was my sense of humor trying to come through and then there was other ones about, you know, those that was manufactured in a in a lab. And other one that was the Chinese were accusing the Americans of bringing it over to the military games that were in Wuhan. So it kind of had some fun with that. And then I said, you know, the last two here, they kind of know the kind of interesting, you know, and one was a by Dr. Thomas Cowan, who would who was blaming the introduction of 5g and he claimed that Wu Han was the first city. I don't know this for a fact but he had claimed that one was the first city in the world to be blanketed with 5g technology and it somehow altered our our cells and created a virus. That was his theory. I thought it was kind of interesting. Never once in this post that I say this is where I believe that Coronavirus came. Like I didn't say that and then the next one was with regards to a scientific paper that I found some some astrobiologists that believe that it that all the viruses the plagues, SARS ziqi IRS was jiki or something like that, that was something like that, anyways are coming through our atmosphere from space there pathogens from space scientific document that was printed in 2017. And I can let your viewers have a get to get the link to it after this if you want me to when the when the sun is in a grand solar minimum with which they claim we're in right now. I mean, I'm not a scientist again, I just I'm telling you what I read grand solar minimum meaning that there's not a lot of heat coming from the sun. Grand solar maximums is When there's a there's a lot of solar flares that the pathogens are able to, to make their way to earth because they're not burnt up. And then they find the place of least resistance, which is supposedly the atmosphere over the Himalayas, which is near muon. And hence the virus is brought to from from outer space. And I didn't say it like that. But I mean, I'm kind of just conceptualizing what the article says. And it's a, it's a scientific document, the hit piece put out that I claim that it came from outer space. Nobody, of course takes the time to read it, because we're live in a world where sound bites are sound bites. So if somebody starts it, everybody else ran with it. And what was really disappointing is that every one of the media just kind of went with it. Nobody took the time to actually read what I actually had posted. They just read the Twitter two days later was press progress, which is owned by the Broadbent Institute, they put out that article, and then they put out something about the queue and on now with regards to Q anon if, like I said, I got a curious mind. Somebody had sent me a link to a video somewhere early on in the the Coronavirus, or the COVID. quarantine. And it had talked about some of the theories that are discussed with with the Q and on ideology. And so I started to look at some of the different theories that are being out there. And God's honest truth. I don't remember hitting those links or those likes, obviously, I must have hit them. But I they're so random that I don't know why I would I own it, I guess obviously, it happened. Do I buy into everything that the queue anon says, No, I really have no idea what's going on. It's just part of part of the stuff that I was, was looking at that sort of the explanation there. I could go on a lot longer on that. But I don't know if you really need to know more. People like all sorts of things on Twitter all the time. Just me personally, I don't think someone should be canceled because they like to tweet on on Twitter. And people put it in their bios quite often that likes don't equal endorsements. People are mind reading. They're saying, Oh, well, someone liked a tweet from whenever someone liked this tweet. So now we have them all figured out, we have everything figured out. Well, I'll just finish off on the queue thing, because I mean, guilt by association. So I've said that I did look at some of the cues. Everybody go and do their own research on this, and make up their own mind. If 5% of what they say is true, then that's a scary world. Let's put it that way. I have no proof on any of it. Other than what really got me interested in it is that every one of them are concerned about missing children. And how many children go missing every year. And if anybody know anybody that knows me, knows that I've been involved with children my whole life. I don't even call it being in service. But I mean, I coached all of my kids through all their sports, I was administrating baseball, I was an administrator in hockey, I was on community boards have always been involved in my community and always been involved with children. Even when I was back home when I was in my teenage years, you know, I was tying skates at the local skating rink for for the youngsters. I've always been in and I was coaching a team when I was 14 years old. So I've always I've always had fun. And I just It breaks my heart, like the one missing child is bad enough, let alone 50,000 per year in Canada, and 500 to 800,000 in the US every year go missing now they say I did read to this about the 50 to 60% of them find their way home over time. Maybe not the same year. That was what really got me interested the rest of it. It's up to like its total speculation. The fact that I hit a couple of likes, like he said, I I have no idea. But am I embarrassed for doing research on something that is near and dear to my heart and that should be near and dear to all society's heart. I'm not embarrassed about that at all. I know we don't want to go too far down any of these rabbit holes or anything talking about missing children? I mean, there's a famous case a few years ago when yorkton there was that girl that was the last sorry, the Tim Hortons and then she was never seen again. Cell phone was never turned on again. They figure most likely she was humanly trafficked. Yes. That she had started talking to someone that she was essentially catfished online. Yeah. And that. Is that right? I didn't know that. But I know I know that the young lady that the teenager that you're talking about she had texted her friend that she needed help and then she said no, no, I'm good. There's a lot of weird things that kind of happened with that even look nationally murdered and missing Indigenous women they figure a lot of those girls are deaf boys. Yes go missing in our traffic often end up in city centers where they're used by men and women for prostitution and this and that. It's it's absolutely disgusting. And it's, you know, if it meant to me getting canceled, to bring awareness to this subject and I mean, I didn't even plan on talking about this right now. But I mean, now that you bring it up, I wouldn't say I get angry. But I get more motivated all the time to try to help and to do something in I don't know what what there is to do. I mean, but well, it has to stop. From the people I've talked to that have been involved in investigating this. It's very, very difficult to investigate because these human traffickers are paranoid. They even get a whiff where they think the police are involved, and they just disappear. Their whole they just disappear. They go underground. It's crazy to me to think that in North America with how connected everyone is, where there's cameras everywhere, that people can just suddenly disappear off the face of the earth. It's It's terrifying. Oh, like I say, I urge people to do their own research and come up with their own facts. Because if nothing else comes out of this meeting today that we're having. If it motivates more people to do this, then that's good work. Now, I read a book A few years ago, it's called so you've been publicly shamed. And it was talking a bit about people who've been canceled over saying something insensitive on Twitter. I mean, you just liked a few tweets. But there's people that said something was taken out of context taken the wrong way. Or maybe they had tweets or Facebook posts from years ago, especially people involved in the political realm. I feel like once you get involved in politics, on any level, that microscope is, so it's like right there and they laser in on anything that they can. What's it like to be counseled? Well, at first, I was in a state of shock. I actually was brought up top down, just like you are right. You're brought up to believe that honor begets Honor, I really believe that party would have my back. I didn't think that this was bad enough, I felt bad that I was had become the news. For that I have the media to thank and for the opposition, but I'm smart enough to know that that's their job. Unfortunately, that's the way our society is right now. First, it was it just felt awful. disillusioned. For a long time. I really can say that. I I felt that I was I had felt that I was Yeah, I thought the party was gonna back me and I but guess what I wear it. It's It is my fault. I did break protocol from what the sask party had warned us, you know, don't post anything controversial on Facebook. They were doing what they felt that was what they needed to do for the party. what was best for the party, I guess, certainly wasn't best for me. I don't know how else to answer that. Because I mean, I could go into Yeah, it was, I went through a lot of different emotions. I was angry and sad. But you know, I never really was ashamed because I didn't feel like I ever did anything wrong. I don't feel that the punishment fit the crime. Somebody at some point in time needs to stand up to the canceled culture that we have all the corruption and the chaos and the canceled culture that we live in. Is this the kind of society that we want to live in? Is this the kind of society that we want to continue to, to even get more and more into? Is this what we want to become as humans? Is this what kind of country we want to live in, look at what's going on in the United States. And look at what they put people through down there. Judge Cavanaugh, for example. I mean, the Supreme Court, the allegations that came up against him, is a good example. You're driving a wedge between two sides of the society. And when we should be all working together and being as one, I get that we can have different ideologies, and I really respect a person like less than Lewis, who was the candidate for the Conservative Party leadership, who says, and these aren't her words, why don't we focus on the values that we all share, as opposed to the ones that we don't? In China, they have a social credit system. So if you say anything that is not in line with the main narrative of the country, then you can lose your social credit. And as you lose social credit, you lose privileges in society. But I think it's a big fear for a lot of people that that's kind of where we're going where there is one set of what should be said and what should be expressed. And if that isn't shared by everyone, then people that are outliers are to be, you know, not only canceled, but destroyed, in a way, destroyed their careers destroy their their livelihoods than they are they're left to pick up the pieces while everyone moves on to the next outrage. Right. curiosity and critical thinking are actually being canceled out right now. Yeah. And if you're not going with the main street narrative, you know, I said this, I've said this before, but I mean, are we all supposed to wake up every morning? Listen to CBC, read the New York Times and The Globe and Mail, the watch CNN and say, hey, that's it. That's exactly that's everything that's going on in the world right now. It's all I need to know. Boom, I'm off to work. There's people that would say yes, that there is Yeah. I just think to like you were talking about people having common values versus opposite sides. I just find These days that the things that we disagree on now, instead of just saying, Yes, we disagree, let's find some common ground here on things we can agree on. But then we'll we'll continue with our disagreements. Everyone can do their own research. And maybe you change people's minds. Maybe if you don't, but hey, I still respect you as a person. That's all gone right out the window. It now it's if if I don't, if you don't agree with me, well, you're my You're my enemy. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I, I did read a lot of the stuff or listen to a lot of the stuff. Those 10 that you sent, send me that. I didn't look at him. Like, I don't need to hear it. I've seen enough. And I heard enough, the attempt to shame and that type of thing. And what surprised me is that I had two constituents that emailed me that were mad at me. They bought the narrative, and I don't, I'm not blaming them. This is what the media told them. They were upset. They were supporters, they actually the vast majority of people have reached out in the opposite way, and said that this is ridiculous. At least those two people actually reached out to you to express it into hopefully ask, Hey, what really happened here? Yeah. You know, instead of just reading it saying, okay, I read it, it must be true. And then sharing with their friends. That's good, that shows that they're willing to engage in critical thinking, and they're willing to say, Hey, I read this. Well, I want to get some answers. And I think that's good. They didn't ask for answers, though. All they didn't know. They were just telling me that they were. They were done with me. Now. I'm not. I'm not blaming them. I'm like, total respect for them at all. 100%. Like, it's one thing is I don't hold grudges very often. And never have. I was gonna ask this question a little bit later. But I just figured I'd ask it now, just because we're kind of just in the same realm. Do you think that there's a media bias against conservatives, whether it be candidates people in office? You know what, there's a good answer to that. It's more than just conservatives. It's anybody that goes against the mainstream. Charlie Angus, is an MP for the New Democratic Party. And he has been after, like peer approval, polivy for all the liberal scandals that have been going on. And that could keep a lot of people busy. And I have been one of Charlie Angus, his biggest fans. There's an NDP that I really admire and respect, he shut down his Twitter account this week, this past week, because of the abuse he was taken. So it's not just conservatives. Twitter is a cesspool of no name, people who hide behind little icons, and can call you all sorts of names. And that's fine. You know, I mean, be what it be. I'm going to tell you a story about a book, I read what Tommy Douglas, I don't agree with all of his ideologies. But I tell you, I, I have a lot of respect for that man, because he was a brave soldier. And he was hammered hard by the liberal media, back when he started running, because he was different than the mainstream. And so if you read there's other stories about the history of Canada and the liberal media, so it's not just conservatives. However, the liberals back then compared to where the the current Liberal Party is in Ottawa, we're getting off tangent here. Now. It's so far diametrically different than it was back then you can't even compare the two. That what is going on in Ottawa right now. And the Liberal Party is like a fight with the NDP to see who can go farther left. Tommy Douglas would not recognize this party. If he came back right now. He would not recognize the NDP at all jagmeet Singh, or Ryan, Miley, or neither would Lester Pearson or john Crichton, and Paul Martin, I'm sure they just shake their head at what's going on with with the Trudeau regime. These are not normal liberal policies. To answer your question back on that, are they against conservatives? Right now? It appears so because conservatives are the biggest threat to the mainstream thinking. There is some bias out there. There isn't a lot of well, you look in the US. I mean, you got Fox and you get CNN, you can watch fox tell a story. And then you watch CNN tell the story. And somewhere in between is the truth. Scott Adams says it's people they're watching the same show, but they might as well be watching two completely separate. Yes, yeah. Yeah. That's why you have to go off of the mainstream and to guys like Joe Rogan, which we talked about, I think before, there's Adam hoesley on Twitter, that I follow who is a former professional baseball player who is very pragmatic, and he's unbiased, and he calls like it is there's other guys on there, serve on it. cernovich sort of it. That's what's thinking, Oh, yeah. Mike cernovich cernovich. I guess he'd be more of a considered to be a conservative Woody. I think so. Yeah. But he calls out the conservatives down there, too. He called Oh, yeah. He calls them all out Canada. What do we have got the National Post to kind of support conservatives. You still have Rex Murphy, who is an icon, but I don't want to hammer the media. When I want to talk a little bit about the local media right now because I feel bad for them. They're doing they're trying to do it. job. And they're mostly young people like yourself. And you know, part of the reason I'm here today is is to support you because I, you know, I've lived in Saskatchewan my whole life and a young entrepreneur like you trying to make a difference trying to bring something to the public. I mean, good on you, Russell, good on you. I'm not here to try to explain and make people feel sorry for me, I can despise victimhood altogether to the local media, as mostly young people trying to make a make it in journalism and move up. So they're doing what their bosses tell them to do. So did they ask me for my side of the story, not really. They asked me for commentary, which I was not allowed to give until of course, I was replaced by that and signed a resignation. But by then they'd moved on. Well, no, they still were reaching out. Okay, but they only wanted clips. I answered one guy, I'm not gonna say which network or who it was. And I answered him, I finally answered the phone. And I said, Okay. What do you want? Well, you know, he's surprised. He said, Well, I just let me take you here. And I'm like, No, I thought maybe we could kind of like hopeful that maybe we'd have a conversation like you. And I did. Right, you know, where he could live streamed a little bit, but then I know, they don't have enough time for that, because they were on to the next story, but they just wanted to do clips. The few that I did to answer a few of them, they just took what they wanted to, and put in a few comments. A lot of them criticize me for not getting back to them. And I'm like, it's too late. Now. You know, I mean, you've already made the story up, you've already made up your mind what the story is. It's people like yourself, and other folks like yourself across the province that have been reaching out to allow me to tell the truth, who have been your supports, throughout this whole process of being canceled. And this process of realizing now that the sask party for right now is a no go. And I went to SAS to nice view, and I'm not trying to knock down but there was no executive and SAS to nice view. When I got there. I sold 135 to 250 to 200 memberships. I rebuilt the executive from scratch, built a campaign team and was running the campaign pretty much by myself. I had some but I had some good friends helping me along the way. They were very supportive and shocked and reached out to the party where some of them were very upset. There was phone calls. Yeah, they were very supportive of me. Those were the my biggest supports. And my family. Of course, I have five children. I got two of them that are well, one lives in the States. It goes to university and plays hockey down there. So he was really kind of out of the loop. I mean, he's a jock. Right? So he's like dad can that can handle it whatever's going on daughter in Kalona, or she lives in Vernon, and my two sons and my daughter, and I had lunch, about three days after that, together, they were behind me. And I'm like, if I run as an independent, are you guys willing to put up with what this is gonna come? Because it probably would be more of a firestorm. And they were all what whatever you want, you know, that here's our opinion. Some of them preferred that I, a couple of them preferred that maybe I didn't run, just because they didn't want any more stuff thrown at me. But they weren't worried themselves. But I had lots of support. And I also had, I also got about 100 new friends from across the province. I had probably three or 400 emails, phone calls and texts from people that I know, it was so gratifying to know that, you know, you spent a life building up a reputation in you. What, what's, what is that saying, you know, it only takes five minutes to ruin a lifetime. I don't feel that I deserved to lose my reputation. While I'm sure it's, there's certain people out there that maybe might question me, that's fine. But my friends, were there for me. And I found out that I had a lot of supporters across the province as well. It's good to hear that you still got lots of people that are in your corner. So what are your plans now? I've had discussions with the financial world, getting back into the match. Well, although that's something that I've always so there's an opportunity there. I actually think there's room for a third party. I think it's time for a third party in Saskatchewan. I'm exploring that opportunity at this point in time to being part of that. Would you run as an independent or? No, I think it's I mean, this election is going to be held on Monday got four years to, to look at another option. I do think that there's an option out there that needs to be explored. At least I understand that there's, you know, you get the Liberal Party, the Green Party, the Progressive Conservative Party in the buffalo party already. Right. You know, is there an opportunity for another party? I don't know. But where I'll end up I still feel that I have something that I can offer the province. I wouldn't say that I'm done with politics yet. I'm not ruling it out. So after this whole incidents occurred, how have you grown as a person? What have you learned from this? Hmm, it goes back to my business days is that you have to be careful who you trust and you have to trust your inner guidance. A lot more as well. And I've always had a good inner intuition, if you want to call it that inner guidance, gut gut feelings. I probably didn't follow that enough. At the same time, as I grown as a person. It's made me stronger. I mean, you know, yeah, even at 59, just about 60 years old, you can always learn something. I think that the day you quit learning is the day that you die, right? And or, well, that's my philosophy. I don't, doesn't have to be for everybody. But I like to learn. This has been a tough lesson. I guess the what I've grown as a person, and it comes back to what I said before is that I've learned that all this chaos that's going on in this corruption that's going on in the world, the chaos that's going on down the United States. I do not. That's another reason I entered politics is I did not want that to come to Saskatchewan. And yet, yes, see, Scott, moe and Ryan, Miley and in the bickering that goes on, and the name calling and all of that sort of stuff. And you go Yeah, well, we're still quite a bit further away from the Trump's and in the posies and the Biden's and all those people down there, man, like, Can you look at they're fighting in the streets, they're shooting each other in the streets for goodness sakes, like is that is that the kind of society and I'm saying that I think that this is like a major shift that is, is going to be upon us. And that shift is going to be the the store before the calm or if you want to call it that right, and not the calm before the storm. But I think the storm is upon us right now. And that we are heading for times where all of this is going to crumble, like and I talked about our institutions or healthcare or education or social side, and our justice system, our governments fit right in there in our business models. You know, the another book I read was about reimagining capitalism. Because I spent the last 24 years of my life watching capitalism, all you have to do is look at what's going on with the with the big tech stocks, they they're kind of just getting richer and richer. Well, the mom and pop shops are going broke, we have to change as a society. I haven't seen a political party that's been brave enough to do that. I think people are resistant to change, people would rather have the status quo because at least they know the status quo, even if it's not perfect. We talk a lot about change. I think when actually when people when changes upon people, some people step up to the plate, but I think a lot of people, they just look and they say hey, okay, no change. What's it gonna look like? And they worry, and especially with the way that Coronavirus money, people are really worried that if there is change, how much worse is it going to get for me? Exactly. But governments and our democratic system, they govern to get elected the next four years. As soon as the elections over, they start governing, but they're governing so carefully to not make any mistakes so that they don't make any of those changes that you that you just talked about. And I mean, I've got five people that I point out that are like john diefenbaker, there was never a man, it was so much on human rights, right? He brought human rights to this country. Tommy Douglas was never afraid to govern for what he believed in. And he kept getting elected. Right, Brad wall, he came in there and you know, and he made a difference, right, Roy Romano Romano was not your today's NDP at all. In fact, he was a liberal, like a pragmatic liberal, he made some tough decisions, and yet was able to balance off the unions and govern. And he took us at a time when we were when we really needed them. And the last one is Preston Manning, Manning had a vision for a new way of running the country. Unfortunately, a lot of his stuff ended up the word after he was there. You know, a lot of the liberal government's after that they were calling Well, we're reforming this and we're reforming that. And I always remember that because it was the Reform Party that he started and they word reform became a new key buzzword in Ottawa. Yeah, I sorry, I'm talking a lot here. Because I just have a lot of passion for I have a lot of passion for change. That is positive change. And I just people are gonna look at this and say, Yeah, he's pretty naive, because you know what to get into government. You can't change anything. And I've heard that too before. Is there anything that we didn't cover today that you'd like to cover? I just want to say first of all, to apologize, thank my donors, and my and all of the people that sponsored me through my 1819 months that I was, was a candidate them and apologize for not fulfilling my mission. I want to also apologize to the people of Saskatoon eastview for not giving them the opportunity to vote for me, give them that option because I could have ran as an independent and I and I didn't. I really don't have anything else to say I've said a lot, I think and I mean an hour's a lot It's been a it's been a good chat. Thank you. It definitely has been. And I want to thank you very much for coming on to the podcast. A Darrell is a great chat. And I hope in the future if you are getting back into politics again, you'll consider coming back on the show and we can have another chat. Well, I certainly will. Thank you so much.