Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has recently apologized for the sins of the previous leader of her own party.

Former United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney oversaw some of the toughest lockdown crackdowns in the Western world. Pastors were arrested in front of their children; others were taken down in El Chapo-style arrests; others turned themselves in and had their churches seized for the crime of keeping their church doors open.

Business owners that were forced to make survival decisions to defy lockdowns in order to pay their bills and save their business were sometimes arrested, repeatedly harassed by inspectors and issued huge fines and summonses.

Premier Smith's apology and her promise to investigate how best to provide lockdown amnesty has come too late for a lot of businesses, including when we were able help through your generous donations to FightTheFines.com, where crowdfunded lawyers are provided at no cost to help businesses, pastors and regular people to fight their lockdown tickets in court.

Do you remember Debbie from the Tipsy Cow Pub in Hanna, Alberta? When the government told her that she would have to pivot her business to take out only, she knew her business wasn't going to survive. So, she kept her doors open and her community supported her. But the fines and the government harassment forced her to comply.

FightTheFines.com lawyer Chad Williamson from Williamson Law was able to help Debbie get her lockdown tickets tossed out. That's great news for Debbie.

But unfortunately, the forced closure of her business by the province of Alberta to comply with the lockdowns has resulted in the permanent closure of her business. Debbie's just one of the thousands of Alberta businesses that could not survive the government lockdowns.

It wasn't COVID that got them, it was COVID hysteria. And for each one of these people just like Debbie, the promise of the Albertan dream was stolen from them.

This is supposed to be a place of opportunity, entrepreneurialism and freedom; it's in our motto, “strong and free” — Alberta was not those things for the last two years.

Let's have Premier Danielle Smith keep her word and return us to what we were. If you agree, go to LockdownAmnesty.com and sign our petition to the premier, calling on her to toss out the lockdown prosecutions and regulatory offences before more dreams are stolen.