Alberta INDEPENDENCE - CLOSER Every Day - APP CEO Mitch Sylvestre
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
204.53244
Summary
Mitch Sylvester, the CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project joins us to talk about his recent trip to Washington to meet with the Trump administration, the opposition to Premier David Eby's plan to build a pipeline to the west coast of Alberta, and the recent comments by the Premier of Quebec.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
I was in Folaire and did an event last night and that was the biggest cheer that we got all night
00:00:05.520
was when we said that we would basically disconnect a mile of rail on the very east
00:00:10.080
side of Alberta so that nothing from BC could go through. Hi it's John and welcome to the channel
00:00:18.440
great to have you along today. Today we've got a special guest here on the channel we'll be talking
00:00:23.660
with Mitch Sylvester the CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project and if you're somebody who's
00:00:29.200
been following the independence movement here in Alberta you'll know that Mitch along with Jeff
00:00:33.940
Rath and Dr. Dennis Modry have been in Washington recently to talk to the Trump administration
00:00:39.120
so we certainly want to touch on that with Mitch but also I want to talk to Mitch a little bit about
00:00:44.340
the backlash against Premier Daniel Smith's plan to put a pipeline to the west coast the backlash
00:00:50.860
coming from David Eby the Premier of British Columbia and recent comments by Yves-Francois Blanchet the
00:00:58.080
Premier of Quebec. Also there's a big event coming up if you want Alberta independence we're going to
00:01:04.220
tell you about an event that's coming up that you need to be at so without any further delay I'd like
00:01:09.840
to welcome Mitch Sylvester the CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project. Hey John thank you so much it's
00:01:16.880
great to be here. Well it's good to have you back it's been a while I think it's been three or four
00:01:20.600
months since I've had you on here lots has happened over the summertime as we head into winter which is
00:01:26.520
coming quicker than I'd like to have happen I know that I want to talk to you about a bunch of things
00:01:30.800
here Mitch as I said off the top but I want to chat with you a little bit about your meeting in
00:01:35.340
Washington which is making waves National Post running a story the other day a picture there of
00:01:40.280
Jeff Rath with his big hat on Jeff saying we're literally one degree of separation from the Oval Office
00:01:46.720
I know it's kind of confidential who you were talking to but how did you come back from that
00:01:52.640
meeting with Jeff and Dr Dennis Modry? Well so first of all that was my first meeting they had
00:01:58.240
gone up at the original meeting the first meeting was an hour the second meeting was two hours
00:02:02.980
how did I come away from that you know we have all we have to do all the work that we need to do before
00:02:09.920
we can initiate that process but you know what it was very positive as far as I was personally
00:02:15.340
concerned they're very interested in an independent Alberta based on what's going on politically in
00:02:21.380
Canada and we supply you know a lot of their oil we produce 87 percent of Alberta of Canada's oil
00:02:27.780
here in Alberta so I think I think we have lots of things in common I think it could be a wonderful
00:02:32.640
partnership I'm just going to clear that up for everybody in the room though the 51st state has not
00:02:38.900
never come up it never it came up for 10 seconds and both sides understand that that's an impossibility
00:02:45.480
right yeah so yeah so other than that you know the what I came away from the meeting was this
00:02:51.620
the the particular high level uh American staffer whatever this gentleman is I know what he is but
00:03:00.160
he said you just don't expect to walk away with Alberta do you
00:03:04.400
and that's something that you know has always been front and center in my mind but what I'm seeing is that
00:03:11.740
we're not having to walk away from Alberta they're just shoving us out um is exactly the way I see it
00:03:17.580
I'm I'm actually concerned that I'm missing something because it just doesn't seem like there's any
00:03:23.420
appetite at all to do anything that will benefit Alberta in any way I want to get back to that okay
00:03:30.100
but recognition by another country when it comes to independence for Alberta that's very important and
00:03:36.320
of course if it's the United States it's the most important thing because they're our neighbor
00:03:39.780
right and and that's the purpose of the visit yeah the purpose of the visit was to say would you
00:03:45.440
recognize us should we become a free and independent nation and I believe they would based on the
00:03:50.180
conversation that we had now and I I heard a name of a person I'm not going to mention it here because
00:03:55.520
I know confidentiality is important but if it's the person I heard it was it's a pretty high level
00:03:59.520
Trump official that you spoke with the other day yeah basically second from the top yeah yeah okay
00:04:05.040
so I think it's who who I was thinking of uh so let me ask you about what's been going on you were
00:04:10.760
talking about the country isn't really wanting to do anything when it comes to Alberta over the last
00:04:17.780
24 to 48 hours I've done a couple of videos on this already Daniel Smith is basically wanting to go
00:04:23.180
it alone when it comes to it uh an oil and uh well a pipeline out to the west coast saying that Alberta
00:04:29.980
will be the proponent of course David Eby the premier of British Columbia said not too many
00:04:36.940
months ago that if there was somebody he'd be willing to talk about it he's basically slammed
00:04:41.500
the door on Alberta now with his comments the other day what are your thoughts about what's going on
00:04:47.720
right now well you know I don't you may not realize but we met with the premier Saturday uh just before
00:04:53.420
we went to Washington and we had a very long conversation about this and uh we're actually
00:04:58.420
explaining or trying to understand how we're continuing down this path when when she's clearly
00:05:05.060
said uh in Bonneville at uh at our event uh hosting premier's dinner there that she's going to give them
00:05:10.700
six months to do something and my comment to the premier is they're sticking a stick in your eye every
00:05:15.680
week like it's not just it's not just saying no about one thing it's like uh parliament reconvened
00:05:22.340
and absolutely said carbon cap is going to stay exactly where it is and then we're hearing a
00:05:27.360
different message from the premier saying we're going to become an Alberta superpower we're going
00:05:30.560
to double oil production and I just asked her how that is how is that possible that you think you
00:05:35.400
could double oil production if the carbon cap is still in place and bc has absolutely no appetite
00:05:40.020
to put a pipeline across uh through bc and so and the tanker ban is still on so I'm just trying to
00:05:47.300
understand how any of that is going to be possible as much as you wish it if they don't want to play
00:05:52.920
ball with us I mean we're going to have to play hard ball back with with bc at some point and I mean
00:05:57.500
we have options and absolutely have to be able to exercise them well it's interesting you say that
00:06:03.240
because I spoke with you yesterday to set up this interview I've talked to my wife I saw Corey
00:06:07.380
Morgan tweeted out a couple of days ago regarding David Eby's comments uh Corey Morgan saying why
00:06:12.660
don't we just see what happens when we shut down the railroads from British Columbia and how that
00:06:16.460
would affect their economy is basically what you told me yesterday same thing it's what my wife said
00:06:21.580
I mentioned the other day just shut down all the roads as well and we need to play hardball instead
00:06:25.440
of playing nice we need to to play hardball a little bit don't you think or would that be just get
00:06:30.860
into a tit-for-tat with the province to our west well obviously playing nice is not working yeah yeah so so
00:06:37.200
uh you know I was in falera and did an event last night and uh that was the biggest cheer that we
00:06:42.760
got all night was uh when we said that we would basically disconnect a mile of rail on the very
00:06:47.660
east side of Alberta so that nothing from bc could go through uh based on on the attitude that they have
00:06:53.660
I mean what's the difference like it's not as if it's not as if they're not using carbon to ship all
00:06:59.680
this stuff across Alberta I mean if that's if that's actually the issue I mean those trains are
00:07:04.800
pulling a sea can sea cans they're miles and miles of uh of cars long like I mean I I go fishing in
00:07:12.820
Prince Rupert I see them unload I see those I follow those trains all the way to Alberta and all the way
00:07:17.520
through for the most part on my way home so what I see is they're shipping 90 of the stuff 90 of their
00:07:24.600
cargo goes east of Alberta so we're in a we're in a very strong negotiating position uh with
00:07:31.020
British Columbia and if they want to be unreasonable I don't see why we can't be unreasonable either
00:07:34.460
I mean I don't want to do Danielle's work for her but I mean it seems to me that that would be
00:07:38.220
um that would be something that is a real threat well what I'm what I'm really noticing Mitch is that
00:07:45.100
I just don't seem to have much in common with Canada anymore and I was saying in a video this
00:07:50.660
morning what does Danielle Smith have in common with David Eby what does Danielle Smith have in
00:07:54.640
common with Mark Carney I don't know whether you heard E. Francois Blanchet's comments regarding
00:07:59.200
Alberta going ahead with this pipeline or trying to he basically said um he wants to report Alberta
00:08:05.060
as a climate criminal and gave us advice on how we can de um stop using our oil and gas industry and
00:08:10.880
get off our oil and gas I mean I just don't have anything in common with these people anymore and
00:08:15.640
why I mean I'm preaching to the choir bitch but why the hell do we think we're going to get
00:08:22.080
anything out of these people we never are it's never going to happen and and we're saying that
00:08:27.760
we're saying that every night we're saying that it's impossible to to deal with these people they
00:08:33.020
are not us and and that's what they say we don't have a distinct society we absolutely are we're
00:08:40.000
absolutely clear of anything we don't think like them at all we're like two different planets
00:08:45.340
and it's very very clear to all of us like I mean that we're seeing it right now we're not going
00:08:50.680
to subscribe to the fact that there is a climate emergency here in Alberta based on the fact that
00:08:54.740
we have a boreal forest out there with 600 billion trees in it and that we have four million people
00:09:01.100
in an area the size of a massive area an entire north of the province is absolutely void of people
00:09:07.580
and and we're going to pretend that if we're the cleanest oil patch in the world the world needs
00:09:13.700
oil they're just trying to shut our oil in doesn't make any sense to us or anybody else and the what
00:09:19.780
they're doing is they're consciously shutting down our economy so that they can take the next steps
00:09:24.520
in their absolutely legitimate world economic forum program like we can't we were never able to
00:09:31.120
breathe world economic forum three four months ago but it's very clear everybody understands what's
00:09:37.220
going on everybody understands the federal government is lying to us they know we know they're lying we
00:09:43.420
know they know they're lying but they're continuing to lie and so uh absolutely we people of Alberta
00:09:49.220
have to just understand this nobody's going to save us but us so we just absolutely have to stand up
00:09:54.600
to these people and on that note I mean we've got we've got a clear path we've got a clear path out of
00:09:59.260
this and I'm not saying that it's going to be easily done it would be easily done if everybody in
00:10:04.300
Alberta decided that was the way we wanted to go but uh until people and and I also clearly believe
00:10:10.420
that once people are informed they do they will see that that's the only way to go that's the
00:10:14.220
absolute clear path and we must leave I do you see these things that are happening and it's it's
00:10:20.660
happening faster and faster there's the saying you know it's slowly and then all at once you know um
00:10:26.240
do you see these things as a bonus to the independence movement when you hear David Eby say this slamming the
00:10:30.780
door in Alberta when you hear Blanchet talk about this when we haven't got any pipelines on the first
00:10:36.480
things that uh Mark Carney is allowing us to have here in Canada there's probably going to be
00:10:41.020
something a little tidbit he throws out in November apparently there's another list of things that are
00:10:45.600
coming out but do you see these things that they're doing as another check in a box as somebody who
00:10:51.020
will say I want to leave Canada Alberta should be a separate country well you know it's good for us
00:10:56.280
I guess that's the question well well my question to you John is it seems to me that if they're going
00:11:01.420
to write a checklist of things to do to kick us out they're they're doing a day-to-day-to-day
00:11:05.260
and in actual fact I I actually think about it and say well am I missing something here uh like am I
00:11:12.640
missing something because we're trying to understand why anybody would continue to do and say the things
00:11:17.540
that they're continuing to do and say except that the only thing that makes any sense to us is they
00:11:22.040
absolutely want us out and and you know I mean I'm looking around all the time as a CEO of APP and and one
00:11:29.320
of the leaders of this movement and I'm I'm trying to figure out if I'm missing something and it just
00:11:33.780
doesn't seem like it it seems like it's actually face value it's what they're doing is absolutely
00:11:38.700
consciously trying to move Alberta out of Canada or say accept what we're giving you or offering you
00:11:44.400
because you've got no choice well I said that's the other thing yeah I said this morning they're
00:11:50.040
treating us like a child like a petulant child you can't have nice things in Alberta anymore you know
00:11:55.320
here's your place and it's not to make waves are you concerned are you concerned that there are
00:12:02.860
dark forces working in the background to bring down the independence movement here in the country
00:12:08.780
or do you think they're that worried about it do you think the country's that worried about it
00:12:13.700
oh I absolutely believe the country is worried about it and they should be like honestly they
00:12:17.980
should they should be worried about it um I'm not saying that there's not going to be dark forces
00:12:22.380
working against us because just understand the amount the amount of money that we're talking
00:12:25.940
about here right and and so if these people and we're we're clearly seeing that our federal
00:12:31.540
government is is is openly uh taking money from the people of Canada and Alberta um I mean we can go
00:12:38.000
back two or three or four we don't have to go back very far we can go back to just when uh Mr.
00:12:43.000
Trudeau resigned and had a 400 million dollars missing in that green fund of his uh and that's in the
00:12:48.140
open now just just contrast that to uh years ago with Stephen Harper's government when we lost an
00:12:53.440
MP over a 16 glass of orange juice yes I remember that yeah yeah so so now now Canadians are accepting
00:12:59.580
the fact that our federal government is stealing billions of dollars from us right in the wide open
00:13:03.820
and uh we're seeming to be okay with that and accepting it well what people don't understand is
00:13:09.200
it's been a year it was about a year ago when that green slush fund thing broke a government was
00:13:14.300
basically shut down nothing happened right up until I think it was December 19th before the
00:13:18.500
Christmas break then we didn't have a government after the Christmas break we haven't had much
00:13:22.560
government at all this year but that green slush fund I think it was up to 400 million dollars we still
00:13:28.300
don't know what happened with that and people seem fine with this it's like we've gone from modest 10
00:13:34.060
billion dollar deficits in this country to accepting that to accepting 62 billion dollar deficits to now
00:13:39.660
accepting 100 billion dollar deficits and it just seems like just just is is sloughed off by people
00:13:44.700
who don't seem to care what's happening in their country anymore meanwhile Alberta keeps putting money
00:13:49.380
into this I mean what else do I say just it's just so frustrating and even the liberal economists say
00:13:57.700
that this can't continue yes yes we're we're paying a billion dollars a week in interest on this debt
00:14:03.440
to who I have no idea but we're paying a billion dollars a week in interest on this debt
00:14:08.260
Mr. Carney's just spending money as fast or faster than Mr. Trudeau Mr. Trudeau had 82 ethics violations
00:14:15.060
Mr. Carney's up to 103 in the first four or five months of stuff that's going on there as far as
00:14:21.100
non-disclosure is concerned for his business assets and and so here we are gone from the frying pan to
00:14:27.160
the fire basically with a more dangerous prime minister than the one before and I was never the guy that
00:14:32.160
thought Mr. Trudeau was a buffoon based on the fact that I see where he started and where we are as a
00:14:37.760
country today as a consequences of all the things he's done I want to move on here because I want
00:14:43.980
to ask you about the question um we're still waiting to find out if it's constitutional or not
00:14:49.740
can you give us an update on that I know obviously you're waiting like everybody and I talked to
00:14:54.260
Dennis uh Modry Dr. Dennis Modry not long ago he says he's confident that it will be approved
00:14:59.500
well we're we're hoping it's going to be approved we can't understand how asking a question about the
00:15:05.340
constitution could be unconstitutional um but but I mean that's their that's their point and and we're
00:15:10.840
seeing even further down the line even in trial when we were at trial they they never defended their
00:15:15.860
position their lawyers never defended their position at all and even going now further down
00:15:21.440
the line they're preparing briefs back and forth they're still not defending their position
00:15:24.660
so we're trying to understand if they have no position um what we're doing in court but uh at
00:15:31.140
any rate yeah we're expecting or hoping that they're going to approve that question but I mean this is
00:15:35.200
where the dark forces are going to come in yes yeah this is going to be a very easy step for them to
00:15:40.560
to deny the question if they can if they can convince the court that that's in Canada's best interest
00:15:46.840
which would be in Canada's best interest but certainly not in Alberta's um and the thing is is that
00:15:52.040
they totally also understand that we're capable of calling the referendum the minute that question
00:15:55.920
is approved so that should be a worry and the premier herself said I'm still Saturday um to us
00:16:02.840
so we're still in independent Alberta within Canada that's still our position and you know I said well
00:16:08.400
that may be your position today but that may change and after just after this week I mean who
00:16:14.500
would blame her if she changed her position yeah I I just don't know what the next step is for her
00:16:19.820
you mentioned the six months that she gave the government we're past that now we're into
00:16:24.560
this seventh month now and we have to find out what happens because she she had a rebuttal to David
00:16:30.200
Eby and that I've never held anything back from other provinces in this country so why are you holding
00:16:34.140
us back but I don't think that's gonna gonna play with him um well he's got two green MLEs that are
00:16:40.580
propping up his government so if you know I mean just understand that he's just not able to and I mean
00:16:47.860
that was a very suspicious uh election result I mean that was contested you know in the media as
00:16:53.040
being a very suspicious election result and uh and his his majority is is is being propped up by two
00:17:00.000
basically green MLAs so uh Alberta's in a very poor negotiating position as far as they're concerned
00:17:06.040
and so is Mr. Eby like they could walk across the floor and or basically trigger another government and
00:17:12.780
that election and that's probably the last thing they want but but the whole thing is is that it doesn't
00:17:17.120
matter it's just a symptom of the bigger disease we're going to be fighting this forever if we
00:17:21.580
continue to stay here what would be the purpose of getting another pipeline just further to my
00:17:27.560
conversation with you before if they're taking all the money from it anyway yeah yeah why not I mean
00:17:34.020
I mean they're there's they're borrowing and borrowing more and more money just for example just
00:17:39.080
let's pay attention to Norway Norway produces half of our oil less than half of what we produce in oil
00:17:44.300
they have a two trillion dollar U.S. fund and we're 1.3 trillion dollars in a hole
00:17:50.220
and they produce half as much oil as Canada um you know what where's the money I did I read that
00:17:58.360
Norway is looking at investing in an LNG plant in Quebec or something I thought I read something about that
00:18:05.340
yeah well further from our conversation with Mr. Plamond and I don't think they're going to do much
00:18:11.220
with uh with natural gas and here and here's his comment his comment is why would we do that when
00:18:17.700
all we have to do is build another dam yeah they've got hydro out there that's for sure and they've got
00:18:22.680
hydro like the best hydro project or one of the biggest hydro projects in the world that's going on in
00:18:28.140
Quebec and but they don't have to use the assets from that so that they can continue to get
00:18:33.520
transfer money from Alberta because they have not province based on the fact that they don't get to
00:18:38.060
add hydro Quebec to their balance sheet which is really interesting and and and the other interesting
00:18:42.740
thing is Mr. Plamond and said that they don't see any of that transfer money that the federal government
00:18:47.360
uses it as a weapon against the people of Quebec to keep them in Canada so I found that that was a very
00:18:52.200
interesting comment too so so he's saying that they don't need Alberta's transfer money and I'm sure
00:18:57.680
Alberta's happy not to pay it so then as a consequence to that you know I mean they're they feel that
00:19:03.320
they're dealing with the same things we're dealing with they feel they're being oppressed by the federal
00:19:07.400
government they want to get out from the federal government corruption is the biggest thing that they
00:19:10.980
say and it's exactly the way we feel we could talk all day um first of all I want to thank you
00:19:18.100
you're on the road I are you in Grand Prairie tonight I think I looked on the yeah we're in
00:19:23.000
Grand Prairie tonight yeah I'll be uh I've got lunch meetings and meetings all day there with
00:19:27.260
with our people and that we're going to do an event tonight at seven o'clock I would I would like
00:19:33.360
everybody to head over to albertaprosperityproject.com if you haven't gone to one of these events go to
00:19:38.920
them people are filling them up and again thank you so much to you to Jeff um to Dr. Dennis Modry to all
00:19:45.960
the people that put those things together pretty much on a nightly basis there's at least four or
00:19:49.600
five of them every week I do want to mention something to you I don't know whether you have
00:19:53.340
any additional information on this but I I understand there's an event that could be coming
00:19:58.140
up at the end of October closer to the end of October can you confirm that with me I can actually
00:20:04.240
we're going to have a rally on the 25th of October at the legislature um we feel it's time for
00:20:09.500
Alberta to show up yeah and uh we have we you know the amnesty on guns is coming up at the end of
00:20:15.580
uh October and uh if the federal government doesn't extend it that's going to create a lot of pain for
00:20:21.280
Albertans that's the one thing uh the other thing is I think it's time for people in the freedom
00:20:26.980
movement to come and show a little show strength uh to give the government some direction based in the
00:20:34.160
way that they're moving forward and show them that we actually still exist and that they should take
00:20:38.940
what we think into account um into more account actually and so we're going to try and get really
00:20:44.900
literally tens of thousands of people to the ledge uh on Saturday afternoon the 25th of October okay do
00:20:51.800
you feel under assault right now Mitch from the federal government I do oh uh yeah we absolutely I
00:20:57.780
really I really really feel you know I have the the only benefit of being an old person is that we saw
00:21:04.320
I lived through uh when it wasn't like this yeah when I went to high school it was not at all
00:21:11.000
uncommon for a young couple to get married and actually buy a house and that was expected yeah
00:21:17.620
it was expected and and so now that's almost an impossibility the fact of the federal government
00:21:24.160
is sabotaging industry and consciously sabotaging industry is it should be all we need to say well you
00:21:31.560
know what we don't have anything to do with this process because the rest of the world needs what
00:21:34.980
we what we're selling I remember Mitch when people could get married and afford groceries
00:21:39.200
you know yeah absolutely it's just it's just it's insane with grocery prices continuing to go up um
00:21:45.560
thank you so much again thank you for what you're doing uh with the Alberta Prosperity Project we hope
00:21:51.320
people will go to the website learn more about it um I think the numbers are going every day I was
00:21:55.940
reading the article from the National Post and they're trying to underplay how many people here in Alberta are
00:22:01.260
part of the independence movement I think it's growing daily and that's because of the hard work
00:22:05.040
done by people like you so thanks so much Mitch Sylvester CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project always
00:22:10.240
a pleasure to talk with you uh safe travels out there okay thanks for having me and if you like this
00:22:15.480
video please give it a thumbs up subscribe to the channel ring the bell for notifications and I'll see you