I’m a 4th Generation Canadian Combat Veteran and an Albertan. I fully support Danielle Smiths comments on the Poppy.

The increasing desperation of Ms Notley and the Alberta NDP have them grasping for anything to prevent their inevitable defeat. It is hilariously disingenuous that the NDP and its Woke minions who base their central world view on Canada being a colonial racist relic and who use every opportunity to disparage its history and institutions and the Old Stock Canadians who fought the world wars for Canada are sent running for a safe space by Ms Smiths comments on the Poppy. In courageously taking the position she has Danielle Smith shows profound respect for the brutal sacrifices made by Canadians to ensure we would be free of the dark ideologies and corporate technocratic tyranny that the NDP openly represents.

So let me establish the bona fides I have claimed. My ancestor Sir Samuel Steele led the Lord Strathcona Horse to South Africa during the Boer War. He and the next generation of the Family fought WW1. My father Larry Ray and his brother William, the man whose name I bear, joined the Canadian expeditionary forces at the end of October 1939, grandad wouldn’t let them go until the fields came in. William being the smarter of the two fought for the RCAF in the Battle of Britain. He then helped provide air cover for my father and thousands of other young Canadians as their tiny tin boats powered up for their runs into the beaches of Normandy. I was a rifleman with 2PPCLI in October 1993 when we were awarded both the Governor General of Canada’s commendation for bravery and the commendation of the Secretary General of the United Nations for halting ethnic cleansing in Croatia. My grandfather homesteaded in Rochsfort AB in 19o4. He helped build the train bridge in the villages name. Two of his children, Ruby and Jimmy, drowned falling from it in 19o5. Grandad walked the river for days to find the bodies. They were buried on the right of way which now lies in the backyard of some lovely folks who let me visit.

So let me now address what Ms Smith actually said. So firstly her remarks on the Poppy. The Poppy she is referring to not wearing is a made in China mass produced plastic flower. As a Veteran and the child of one I can tell you with certainty none of the Canadian soldiers who suffered brutal deaths or life shattering injury give a damn if you wear a Chinese piece of plastic. They would care that their honorable sacrifice for basic freedoms was respected with a continuous and vigorous watch to ensure they never be eroded, and indeed a willingness to sacrifice in our turn if they are. Read carefully the words Canadian Captain John McCrea, note precisely what he solemnly demands of us

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row That mark our place and in the sky The larks still bravely singing, fly. Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago. We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow. Loved and were loved, and now we lie,In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

Captain John McCrea

McCrea does not extol us to meaningless symbolism. He calls to each of us, the inheritors of the intensely precious liberties won for us by the Dead, to be respectful in our actions every day of their immeasurable loss and the wrenching pain of those who loved and cherished them. To make meaningful their sacrifice with our never ending pledge to stand on guard for the irreplaceable gifts they bought us with it, and to pass them unsullied to our children as they were to us. He demands each individual to Take up our Quarrel with the Foe of unrestrained power and its fetid offspring tyranny. No matter what the cost. I salute premier Danielle Smith for being one of the very very few political leaders to have held high the Torch of freedom no matter the consequence. In this election in Alberta she is indeed engaged in a Quarrel with those who demonstrably would strip citizens of every right Canada’s soldiers have died for in favor of corporate backed race based ideology. Danielle Smith is holding aloft the Torch thrown by our fathers whose light shines for any with eyes to see.

Premier Smiths remarks on Canada’s descent into tyranny are absolutely on target. The stomach turning hypocrisy of our political class at all levels standing on podiums sermonizing about meaning of the 11th of November while issuing the most random pointless and draconian measures in Canadian history should be called out. The men whose sacrifice they cosplay at honoring would easily recognize them for what they truly are. They would have known how deal with these petite tyrants. And as to the descent into brutishness brought on by the branch covidians. On the debasement of the currency of our discourse.. I offer this.

A brief word to the truly traitorous little trolls at the Royal Canadian Legion in General and the Alberta NWT command specifically on this little piece of election interference. You are cowards and traitors to everything you and your organization purport to represent. You threw Veterans out of branches on remembrance day for private medical choices while You took 14 million Covid dollars from your filthy Liberal masters. You banned events by James Topp a Canadian soldier marching across Canada in the name of some of the most fundamental freedoms we have while hosting men dressed as women stripping for minor children. When she made this statement Ms Smith was a private citizen she had every right to make it. It is not acceptable for you to comment on any private individuals belief about the Poppy or their intention to wear it. You are now engaged in partisan politics in the middle of an election. You are nothing but morally bankrupt con artists who prey on the sentiments of Canadians to enrich your organization while Veterans starve in the streets and die alone and abandoned. The fact that you quote the safe guarding of rights and freedoms while decrying someone for actually exercising them is nauseating in its moral duplicity. I include your financial statement so my readers can judge your worth for themselves

Lastly I will address myself to Rachel Notley and all who support her foul agenda. Your transparently dishonest moral outrage in defense of the soldiers of a nation you detest is cringe worthy. You openly support corporate backed Race based discrimination and the mutilation of children. I suppose it comes as no surprise considering you have consorted with the same Ford and Rockefeller foundations that backed the ascension of the last attempt at a New World Order. Rachel you are hyper privileged child of a career politician who has become the dark herald of the corporate fascism my father crossed an ocean to fight. Sic Semper Tyrannus.

William Ray