Moose Calls and 'Accidental' Hitler Salutes: What I Learned at Alberta's Kudatah

The skies were grey and the weather was cold when the Kudatah happened in Alberta.

After a 50-city tour of Alberta and an effort to gather a hefty amount of signatures George Clark gathered his army of hundreds of people. The group, primarily old and white, crammed the drained fountains in front of Alberta's legislature to take part in the insurrection of Alberta.

They were led by George Clark, the man who harnessed the power to bring Alberta together against those communist NDP.

The crowd was buzzing to hear how George Clark was going to make Alberta great again.

The people came in droves. On social media people reported taking Greyhounds to Edmonton and organizing buses. Some brought out moose calls—Alberta's answer to the vuvuzela—to supplement their cheers. Others pulled their kids out of school so they'd be there to witness the fall of Chairman Rachel.

It was a classy event. In no way did people break out any hateful speech or offensive signs. No they did not.

There were no swastikas or anything of that nature. Nope. Not at all. (Okay, maybe just one.)

The crowd was vocal, responding to Clark's calls to action. Up to now, Clark made a big deal of keeping his rhetoric on the straight and narrow. But he started veering off the rails during his hour-long speech. "They made fun of us for meeting in a Walmart, but look at us now," he roared. "When we're done, the NDP party may be the most Conservative party there ever was."

While the great man was orating, people milled about the crowd getting signatures against Bill 10, dubbed the "Boys in Girls' Bathrooms Law" by some of the canvassers.

Clark even the crowd got into the spirit chanting "Kill Bill 10."

After the crowd purged their transphobia, the main event took place: the big reveal of how many people George got to sign his plebiscite. He took kids and arranged them in front of the crowd and started handing them numbers. He may of been transfixed by his adoring crowd because he accidentally gave the first kid the four instead of the third kid, which led him to accidentally say he got over 400,000 signatures instead of the actual amount.

Not only did the four go rogue but so did the comma. No one caught that one though.

At the end of the day I asked foul-mouthed street criminal and VICE writer Drew Brown, what did we learn? What was accomplished at this event? Why didn't we start a "They took our jobs chant?"

Notley was still premier, Clark's nifty notion of having his people sign up for NDP membership to take the party down from within didn't work, and the event just kind of faded away with many people grumbling.

But hey, at least they got to stand outside and yell about things for a few hours. And isn't that really what protesting is all about?

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.