ATHABASCA — Buster Malcolm wants to stamp out corruption in the federal government starting at the municipal level.
Malcolm is one of two candidates as of press time running for the Division 1 seat in Athabasca County in the Oct. 18 municipal election, the other being incumbent Dwayne Rawson, and Malcolm feels there needs to be more oversight on the government, not by the government.
“It basically starts from the federal, but it's starting to come into our municipal government too. I don't understand why they possibly could need a line of credit and stuff for municipal councillors,” he said in a Sept. 10 interview.
He added the government is overstepping and taking away the rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“We have no rights; we're basically living under an illegal government,” he said. “It was banned 70 some years ago, we signed a piece of paper, the Canadian government signed these papers saying they would end colonialism. To this day, we still live under it, 73 years later. Things have got to change.”
However, even with wanting less government oversight, he doesn’t consider himself a libertarian.
“I'm not another conservative, I'm not a liberal," he said. “I think we got too much government. They're into too much stuff. They're in our schools. They're basically trying to control our bodies now. It's got to be stopped.”
Malcolm said he isn’t the type to sit back and do nothing while waiting for someone else to fix the problems, which is why he’s stepping up.
“I haven't really got any specific goals that I'm diving into right off the bat, but I'm just basically going to see what is happening effectively in our system and see what I can basically do here for the people,” said Malcolm. “I've had it with people get screwed and we're getting it at all levels. Like I said, the municipal level isn't as bad as the other two, but it is happening.”
If elected he wouldn’t just kowtow to government mandates though and would demand proof of the measures being effective before agreeing to implement them.
“I would say I want to see your information proving that these maps are effective against your so-called COVID-19,” he said. “When they put masking on last time, I called every level of government. I called Glenn van Dijken and I talked to him on the phone and he openly admitted to me, they don't have any information proving anything. And some of the councillors in town, they told me the same thing, they haven't got no information proving these masks work. So basically, they're willing to just strip you of your rights based on nothing.”
Malcolm also ran as a provincial candidate for the Alberta Independence in the 2019 provincial election, against van Dijken and predicts if the federal government keeps going the way it is, more and more Albertans will vote to separate Alberta from the rest of the country.
“You wouldn't believe the amount of people that want to separate from Canada right now in Alberta. Like I could see (the Maverick Party) possibly winning the next election if things don't change, if they keep going the way they are Alberta's gonna separate.”
