Roughly 500 people turned out for what was pitched as a peaceful, non partisan rally at Red Deer City Hall Saturday to voice concerns with the pending carbon tax.

It was pretty apparent there was a bigger message than just displeasure with Bill 20, with plenty of chants against the NDP government.

Local organizer Darlene Wipf "our province is full of frustration, there's many issues, it's not in one inudstry, it seems like an attack on every industry, right down to our schools, with all the taxes and all the other stuff they stuff down our throats.  The worst is yet to come, I mean we need to stand up now, we need to get involved because I don't think we can go at this quick of a force until 2019 and expect anyone to survive it".

Local Wildrose MLA's Jason Nixon of Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre, and Don MacIntyre of Innisfail-Sylvan Lake took to the stage, along with some local farmers, representatives from the oil and gas industry and a speaker from Friends of Science.

Wipf is thankful for the support "the PC's and Wildrose seem to be echoing a lot of our words again and standing up for us, so it's good to have those kind of people being able to speak again right from parliament, they can tell us how they are handling those issues and what they are trying to gain by doing it.  We just feel like we have some people in the fight with us which is great, we certainly can't fight this alone".

The Alberta Wide Rally Movement included rallies in 11 other communities on Saturday, calling for a referendum on the carbon tax, which they hope to trigger by collecting more than 500,000 signatures on a petition.