Greetings from Saskatchewan!

Yes, as of publishing this and despite our premier having regular meltdowns about how we’re going to bail – we’re still part of Canada.

Sorry.

I’m as concerned as you are. Scott Moe is my premier, and we are all passengers on his joyride. Those don’t tend to end well for anyone. I’m new to Dean’s site. First, let me explain who I am and then tell you why I think smart, engaged and balanced Canadians need to pay closer attention to the antics of the three percent of our country’s population who currently call this place home.

A dumpster fire, but it’s MY Dumpster Fire

If I didn’t have to live in today’s Saskatchewan, I wouldn’t. I’m here for my kids, of who I share custody with my firmly Saskatchewan-based ex-husband. So here I am, writing to you from this racist, claustrophobic, backwoods Conservadome that my fellow Canadians don’t seem to notice or care about anymore. I can’t say I blame them. I’m also writing to you from a place I love, like my parent’s love, and my grandparents and great-grandparents loved Saskatchewan before I did. I care deeply about my province and my country.

I am Canadian, but I’m losing the right to say that because of how my home province’s government is acting on the national stage – like petulant toddlers. As easy as it is to dismiss Saskatchewan, home to three percent of the country’s population, Canadians need to care about what happens here. When you shine a light on the power-hungry, rabid, racist conservatives hanging around Saskatchewan or on the virtually unmitigated political corruption that runs rampant inside our four provincial walls, you uncover a bunch of bugs who are part of a much, much bigger problem in Canada.

Where to Begin?

I’ve seen how the sausage is made. I produced Saskatchewan’s only conservative radio talk show, four hours a day, five days a week, live, from 2007 to 2011. It was a much better, saner time for conservatives both in Saskatchewan and Canada, as well as (in my opinion) for opinion-based media. It was also a time that John Gormley was puppet mastering Brad Wall’s first term as Saskatchewan premier. If it had an asshole vibe, Gormley was attached to it. From the fucked up first edition of Saskatchewan’s Essential Services Legislation, which predictably got crushed by the Supreme Court (but he’s a lawyer – just ask him!) to degrading Saskatchewan’s democratically-elected school boards by stripping them of education property tax revenue controls, Gormley had plans. I watched and learned as he executed them.

The Province The Press Forgot

Circa 2015, I noticed that the Sask Party I had supported was gone. They had blown the Opposition Saskatchewan NDP almost entirely out of the Legislature in 2011, just as reporters in Saskatchewan newsrooms started getting decimated by their Ontario headquarters. Two dozen reporters were working just for Postmedia in Saskatchewan the night the Sask Party formed government in 2007. Today, we don’t have a dozen total across all major media outlets. Disgusted and disappointed by what I was seeing and hearing, I started writing about Saskatchewan politics in 2016, around the same time John Gormley ramped up his public campaign against me. I wrote about his campaign publicly for the first time about six weeks ago, after documenting the complete history of the harassment for myself, and it made me sick.

Hatred Spewed

This Twitter account attests beautifully to how Gormley’s harassment, propped up by the Sask Party and any number of other conservative political operatives, manifests itself in my life both offline and on:

The clever handle suggests that the above Twitter account is not Tammy Robert. I’m not blonde. In fact, right now, my hair is dark brown.

I love cannabis, but I don’t think my eyes are that red.

Until it was deleted a couple of weeks ago, when the Saskatchewan man who was its author and operator was outed, @NotTammyR was one of the vilest, toxic and hate-fuelled accounts on Saskatchewan Twitter. He spewed thousands of stomach-turning Tweets at myself or other Saskatchewan residents, all in my name… and John Gormley’s. He Tweeted about me thousands of times, never more lustily than when Gormley threw him a scrap of red meat:

Yes, my pre-marriage surname is Nicklas. It’s not a secret, but it’s still deeply unsettling to know strange men are sharing your details online in a manner that feels so degrading and sinister. Let’s get to the punchline on who was behind @NotTammyR – a Lutheran pastor from rural Saskatchewan. That is so Saskatchewan right now. The reference to my fear of getting “shot” stemmed from a Tweet and on-air attack Gormley launched when he learned I had moved away from self-employment and into a full-time job.

Activated Fanboi Hate

Even better, I got a job at a union, providing unequivocally Gormley’s theory that I’m a left-wing hack, you see. My number one reason for finding and taking that job was I felt so hunted by John Gormley as a consultant that I sought the cover of a permanent, full-time nine-to-five job to live a more normal life. The result of Gormley’s call to action that day was devastating in real life and online, with safety and security blowback everywhere. Guggenmos and other Gormley fanboys broadcast the location of my workplace on social media dozens more times:

Wasn’t ever a NDP spokesperson. Not even a little bit.

These absolute creeps, including the Lutheran pastor from Langenburg, Saskatchewan, have been doing John Gormley’s dirty work while obsessing over me on the internet for years in ways that are so intimate and fucked up. Gormley had dehumanized me to the extent that I’m even a person to them anymore, or if I am, I am “the most disgusting person in SK.”

Gormley has been rattled for years about the idea of me publishing a book.

This has been a hot topic of John Gormley and his army of conservative male fuckwits for years. In 2013 I received a $4000 provincial grant to write the first one. It was a non-repayable grant. Because that book has never been published, Gormley and his sidekicks have been howling ever since about how I stole the money. About how I must be a fake writer.

That’s pretty rich, given only one person we’re talking about today is a fake writer who has taken money from the Saskatchewan taxpayer, and it isn’t me, is it John?

Using International Tragedy to Further A Smear Campaign

I’d love to tell you that what you’ve just read is the worst I’ve ever experienced based on the sadistic whims of John Gormley.

I was the lead crisis communications consultant hired by then-Broncos’ president Kevin Garinger on the night the bus crashed. I was with the club from the day after the accident until right after the team’s 2018-19 home opener in September.

John Gormley spent four hours of live radio trashing me for the crisis communications work I did for the Humboldt Broncos.

Really fucking good job, which is why you don’t know about the three-ring circus behind the scenes of that nightmare. I worked copious hours, and we deliberately billed lightly.

THe More Doors You Open, The worse the Smell Gets

Let’s be clear that the Lutheran pastor’s Twitter account is just one aspect of a ten-year campaign of vicious, life-altering public harassment I’ve experienced directly or indirectly from or because of John Gormley. He seemingly lost his mind at the slightest indication that I was going to pose a threat to his otherwise unopposed, obscene level of power and control over Saskatchewan.

Sad story, I hear you thinking, but why should you care?

Because John Gormley is a cog in a perverse conservative rage machine that systematically dismantles my province and your country.

He was and, as far as I know, remains a close friend, mentor, advisor to and confidant of Brad Walls. You know, the same Brad Wall doling out advice to the Freedom Convoy Organizers that terrorized Ottawa in February.

The Scott Moe COnnection

Gormley is Scott Moe’s mouthpiece. From the looks of things outside, he has just as much control over Moe’s government as he did Wall’s. Moe regularly and almost solely appears on Gormley’s show to make deeply partisan announcements, bypassing other less politically-friendly media and audiences completely. Behind the scenes, Gormley has and continues to exert enormous influence over the Sask Party. Including the premier, his advisors and any number of Sask Party MLAs and, by extension, the province and Government of Saskatchewan.

Gormley is a longtime personal friend of Ezra Levant – he told me that himself. They’ve known each other for years.

Ezra shits a dirty, fraudulent narrative for his debased fans. Gormley then sprays some Febreze on it and amplifies it for his more mainstream audience.

One degree of separation from John Gormley to a place that Canadians (and most Americans) don’t want to be.

Next, add Eastern Canada’s favourite Rebel Lite reporter and Gormley’s longtime friend Brian Lilley. Gormley talked about him, too, all the time.

You want to go full right-wing rage cabal?

Make this a foursome with Brian Lilley’s girlfriend, Ivana Yelich. Yelich left her job as John Gormley’s executive producer to take a job in Ottawa as Doug Ford’s press secretary. Now, look at how rage spreads from West to East in Canada. Think about the fact that Ezra Levant has somehow been normalized enough to host a live, widely-reported debate in the race for Alberta’s next premier. Think about the bizarre tactics Doug Ford has used on his critics, including starting his own news service and the arrest of Caryma Sa’d.

This shit does not start in a vacuum

• You see the entitled, aggressive, illegal disruption across Canada from Freedumb convoyers.
• The unhinged, violent hate for the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet.
• The rise of Pierre Poilievre and his brand of toxic, destructive politics.
• Jeremy Mackenzie’s assault and weapons charges.

All have deep, toxic roots in Saskatchewan. They have been allowed to flourish because nobody has paid any attention to them while they’ve grown and festered. You only learn about them when they land on your doorstep in Ottawa and stay for weeks.

We’ve got a lot to talk about in Saskatchewan. Including but not limited to fraud, indoctrination and corruption. And, of course, one of our specialties, bold and aggressive racism levelled against our Indigenous friends and neighbours. Or pretty much any Canadian newcomer who isn’t as white as Tatyana from Kyiv.

The Rage Farm is Local, But We Ship it Out Nationally

Local media in the province will not name names. John Gormley almost solely currently controls the political narrative. Propping up the Scheers, Poilievres, Mackenzies, Batters and more before and after they leave Saskatchewan to fuck with your life. On a per capita basis, we also produce the best football players in the country. For that reason and many others, Saskatchewan does deserve the respect of its fellow Canadians. But I don’t blame you if you’ve lost some for us, especially in recent years.

In Closing

Only a million people live in Saskatchewan – A wannabe Dutton ranch that chews up the same amount of Canadian landscape as Texas does the United States. We are impossibly tiny and large at the same time. I want to shine a light on Saskatchewan because I think genuine scrutiny from other Canadians will force some change here. Hopefully, by extension, where you live too. I guarantee many people who live in Saskatchewan think Yellowstone is a documentary and an instruction manual. If that’s the case, I’m your Beth.

After what I’ve been through here, I have no problem fucking up other people’s shit. Especially when their shit is bullshit! And I drink Scotch.

Talk soon, Tam