On Feb. 27, Rebel News' Independence Tour made a stop at Medicine Hat College. There, attendees heard from the three panellists — Sheila Gunn Reid, Tamara Lich and Cory Morgan — and participated in a live Q&A session discussing the more technical aspects of Alberta separation.

But the pro-independence crowd weren't the only ones who showed up last Friday night.

Stepping in to guest host Monday's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Sheila Gunn Reid recapped how the Independence Tour event showcased what real democracy should look like.

“The venue itself deserves a lot of credit,” Sheila started. “It takes real backbone these days for a public institution, especially a post-secondary one, to host a ‘controversial’ event and not cave the second someone sends an angry email — and boy did they get angry emails.”

She went on to praise the college's commitment to free speech and for not buckling under pressure by fabricating some reason to cancel the event.

Both sides of the separatism debate showed up, Sheila noted. Inside, a packed room filled with people interested in how independence might work on a practical level.

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“This Independence Tour isn't about whipping up rage,” she explained. “It's about answering objections, it's about pressure testing the idea, it's about learning from places like Quebec,” the author of Independence Blueprint said.

“And then there were the protesters,” Sheila continued, describing the crowd as a “solid turnout” and more than “a token presence.”

This group “came prepared with signs, slogans” and had a sort of “energetic determination,” she said, noting they were still “prickly” towards her and “adversarial” Rebel News CEO Ezra Levant.

But most importantly, there was “no violence, no shoving, no screaming in people's faces, no attempts to block the doors, no fire alarms were pulled, no vandalism, no theatrical Black Bloc nonsense. There were no Palestinian flags, no Pride flags, no Antifa cosplay, no outside agitator aesthetic.”

Some in the crowd, Sheila said, fit into the typical left-wing stereotypes, “but they were, by in large, well-behaved.”

Both sides held fundamentally differing views, but both exercised their views in a peaceful way.

“That's democracy, not the sanitized, curated Liberal version — a real one. It's a little messy, but this way everyone's rights matter.”

Remaining Independence Tour Dates

• March 5 — Westlock: TBA
• March 6 — Grande Prairie: Venue TBA