John Bolton - April 29, 2026


Alberta Independence Gets Reinforcements - Renew Alberta's Matthew Rowley

CARNEY＂S Sovereign Wealth GRIFT - A FOOL and Your Money That Sure Got People’s Attention — Good. That’s the Point.

Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

201.85

Word count

3,869

Sentence count

274

People

Also mentioned:
Renew Alberta Matthew Raleigh John A. Macdonald Stay Free Alberta Chris Scott Pierre Trudeau Matthew Rowley Danielle Smith David Parker Mitch Sylvester Vimy Ridge Laurier Wexit

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I speak to the President of Renew Alberta, Dr. Matthew Rowley, about his concerns about the current state of the campaign for Alberta's independence from Canada. We talk about what he thinks about the lack of support for the campaign so far, and why he fears that the message may be fractured.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel. I am recording this on Monday, April the 27th.
00:00:08.280 You're likely seeing it on Tuesday, April the 28th. That means as of right now where I sit,
00:00:14.980 yesterday was the final day signing people up on the independence petition. Other than some work
00:00:20.640 this week that needs to be done collecting all of the signatures and handing them in in Edmonton
00:00:25.800 next Monday. It is over, and a lot of people would say thankfully so. What I've noticed over
00:00:32.300 the last week, and something you may have noticed as well, is that more groups are coming forward
00:00:37.720 to fight for independence. You've seen Let's Talk Alberta, Chris Scott, and a number of speakers out
00:00:43.920 talking about independence around the province, talking about hundreds of meetings. You may have
00:00:48.940 heard of the Centurion Project. That's another one that has popped up. David Parker involved in that
00:00:54.800 one. And today we're going to talk about another group that I heard about called Renew Alberta.
00:01:01.640 And on the channel today, I've got the president, Matthew Raleigh, with me. I have some concerns
00:01:07.020 about what is going on right now. Of course, we put our trust in Mitch Sylvester and Stay Free
00:01:12.440 Alberta over the last four months of this petition signing campaign and over the last year or so,
00:01:17.820 going back to the Alberta Prosperity Project. I do have concerns. I'm worried that the message
00:01:23.980 may get fractured, that we may not be on the same page. So let's talk to Matthew Raleigh
00:01:30.120 from Renew Alberta. Matthew Raleigh, pleasure to meet you. Good to meet you as well, John. And you
00:01:36.000 know what? This is a first for me. I've never actually had somebody here in the studio. So
00:01:39.700 thanks for coming in and welcome to my home. It's great to have you here. I'm glad to be here. It's
00:01:43.060 a lovely home. Great place down here. Well, we've got the big blue flag up here. We've seen a lot
00:01:47.760 of the flying of the flag over the last four months in particular. The petition campaign kind
00:01:52.800 have ended yesterday. All that has to happen now is to turn those signatures in. We're going to
00:01:58.280 talk about Renew Alberta in just a moment, your new organization. I just really spoke to you the
00:02:03.420 other day, but I wanted to get your thoughts. First off, explain who you are. I think that's
00:02:07.920 the first place we should start. A little, in a nutshell, who is Matthew Rowley and what are you
00:02:12.960 about? For sure. Well, I'm Dr. Matthew Rowley. I'm by day a missionary, actually. I'm a professor
00:02:18.740 of theology and historical theology and i did my specialty in political theology which means that
00:02:23.860 i'm interested in all things the canadian constitution the founding of canada the church
00:02:29.300 state settlement in canada and for me uh an important thing is the thriving of alberta
00:02:35.620 and that's why i'm involved in renew alberta i want to see alberta thrive and be successful
00:02:40.900 and to me that means independence that means that we have to actually build something
00:02:44.740 even looking back to the traditional values of Canada that seem to have been lost and to build
00:02:51.440 something new. I want to touch on that some more because it kind of plays into something I've been
00:02:55.480 saying here on the channel for some time. It's something that kind of dawned on me, I think,
00:02:58.620 since I spoke to you the other day. But what have you thought of the campaign so far? We
00:03:04.520 certainly talked a lot about independence last year. January 2nd, the petition campaign started.
00:03:10.520 I think it's been hard to not drive around and see people signing people up.
00:03:15.560 What are your thoughts on it so far?
00:03:16.940 I think it's exciting.
00:03:18.480 It's so cool to see Albertans being Albertans.
00:03:21.860 We have this ability to stand up and to say something that's special and to stand for our beliefs.
00:03:27.120 And I've loved being able to stop and say hi to people who are sitting at a table, normal, regular Albertans,
00:03:33.780 sitting at a table with a flag in the freezing cold or the sun, whatever the weather, and say, hey, how's it going?
00:03:39.120 And they can say, we're doing great. We've had so many people who love what we're saying.
00:03:43.160 We've had a couple of fingers and we've had a whole lot of people who are honking their horn
00:03:48.280 and saying, yes, this is what we're doing. So I'm excited about what I see out there.
00:03:52.240 So over the last week or so, it's become evident to me that there are other groups getting involved.
00:03:58.000 We've been Stay Free Alberta. It was the Alberta Prosperity Project before that.
00:04:03.200 We've heard of Let's Talk Alberta. Chris Scott has had people out over the last
00:04:07.700 A little while at events across the province, we're hearing about 200 to 300 meetings they're going to have.
00:04:13.800 The Centurion product, David Parker is involved in that.
00:04:17.240 I'm looking into that as well.
00:04:19.240 And then I find out about you.
00:04:21.060 I find out about Renew Alberta.
00:04:23.120 What is Renew Alberta about?
00:04:25.900 So our primary focus is to say that everything about Canada was not broken, but has been broken, especially since Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
00:04:33.900 So we want to help people to say there's not a whole lot that we have to do in independence to fix the problems that we see in Canada or in Alberta.
00:04:42.020 We just need to sever Ottawa.
00:04:44.220 We need to be governing ourselves.
00:04:46.420 We don't have to change every aspect of life and our laws and our government and all these different things.
00:04:52.040 Just cut off Ottawa.
00:04:52.980 So you're 100% independence for Alberta.
00:04:56.640 It's the only way.
00:04:57.480 I don't want to make that sound more drastic than it is, but it's the only way.
00:05:02.140 Okay. So at the top of your, by the way, if you want to find out more about this, renewalberta.ca is the website you can go to. At the top of your webpage, it says, we exist to preserve the history and ideals of old Canada through the independence and renewal of Alberta. Is that just basically what you explained to me?
00:05:20.940 That's exactly it.
00:05:22.620 Canada has left Canada behind.
00:05:24.480 As silly as that sounds, that's the reality.
00:05:27.300 John A. Macdonald, they're knocking down statues of him. 0.95
00:05:31.020 The background of Canada, the history of Canada is now, oh, colonialism, genocide, a bunch of settlers who brutalized and terrorized people.
00:05:39.540 It's a lie.
00:05:41.060 And so if we want to preserve the truth of our history, the greatness of people like Macdonald and Laurier, the people who fought at Vimy Ridge and at Juneau Beach,
00:05:48.540 We have to keep Alberta out of this whirlpool that the rest of the country is going down.
00:05:54.160 You know, it's been interesting.
00:05:55.980 We've heard a lot about sort of the 30-30-30 or 33-33-33.
00:06:01.340 There's the 33% who really want Alberta independence.
00:06:05.160 There's the people in the middle who are kind of sitting on the fence.
00:06:08.360 And then there's the 33% who are saying no.
00:06:11.320 from reading your website, it seems to me that maybe Renew Alberta is about trying to convince
00:06:17.520 some of those people who are absolute no's right now to vote for independence. Is that what you're
00:06:22.460 looking for? 100%. Not only the no's, but the guys that are on the fence. Because it is scary. If we
00:06:28.380 say, you know, oh, everything about Canada is terrible. Well, that's not actually true. Most
00:06:32.800 of us are old enough to remember a time when Canada worked. So to say, let's go back to that.
00:06:38.460 unfortunately, it does require independence. I would love to say that, you know what, Canada can
00:06:42.340 be preserved, that we can all turn and shift. But what we've seen is that Canada as a whole
00:06:48.900 seems to like the direction it's going, but Alberta is taking a different stand.
00:06:52.920 You know, I said, I think I may have learned something from reading your website because
00:06:57.000 over the last year, the first time I spoke with Mitch Sylvester was middle of June last year.
00:07:03.580 And I think at the time, or at least at least sometime around there, I said to him,
00:07:07.900 What do you do about the people who wrap themselves in the flag and they say they're patriotic and that's the only reason they want to stay?
00:07:15.740 And this is a question I've asked of many people.
00:07:17.660 I asked it a few weeks ago when I was in Delburn at a Let's Talk Alberta event.
00:07:21.640 It's a hard one to get around, but I think perhaps by reading your website, I'm getting the feeling that you're trying to convince people that the Canada that they once knew no longer exists.
00:07:34.040 and that we can have that Canada that you remember, but in an independent Alberta.
00:07:38.720 Is that what you're looking to do here?
00:07:40.140 That's very accurate.
00:07:41.240 When we think about it, during the Freedom Convoy, people flew the Canadian flag
00:07:45.420 and they were beaten down for it.
00:07:47.900 They were called extremists.
00:07:49.320 They were told that freedom is an extremist word.
00:07:53.000 The values of Canada were actually denigrated and attacked.
00:07:57.280 So just because now the elbows-up crowd are wrapping themselves in the flag
00:08:01.020 and saying that we're the real Canada, it's not true.
00:08:03.280 They hate everything that Canada is supposed to stand for and what our forefathers and our founders actually stood for themselves.
00:08:10.560 And they tell us that it's wrong and bad.
00:08:14.100 So just because they take the flag and they take Ottawa doesn't mean they get to be Canada.
00:08:18.660 Do you think the Canada that used to be exists in Alberta right now?
00:08:22.380 I believe so. I think we still have those values.
00:08:25.140 To be an Albertan is something you can still define.
00:08:28.200 It's something that anyone is welcome to join.
00:08:30.040 We have a wonderful tradition of immigration, of people coming from elsewhere and then becoming Albertan.
00:08:35.940 But it's something that does have a standard, a set of values.
00:08:39.320 That's something more than just maple syrup and hockey.
00:08:42.940 We actually know how to be an Albertan and how to welcome others into that and have a society that works together.
00:08:49.340 We've been talking about this 33, 33, 33, and the idea was don't even worry about the 33 who say no.
00:08:56.240 That's right.
00:08:56.600 You're not going to convince them anyway.
00:08:59.460 How would you try to convince somebody like that?
00:09:01.560 What's your plan?
00:09:03.000 For the one who says I'm loyal to Canada, I say I am too.
00:09:07.240 And let's talk about what loyalty to Canada means.
00:09:09.380 Is it just my country right or wrong?
00:09:11.300 Anyone who happens to be sitting in the prime minister's office is now demanding my complete loyalty.
00:09:16.780 That's not what Canada is.
00:09:18.020 We're not an authoritarian dictatorship.
00:09:19.960 Not yet.
00:09:20.500 Not yet.
00:09:21.160 Is it someone who waves the right flag?
00:09:24.420 Well, then I have to be loyal.
00:09:25.360 You know what? That flag came into being in 1965 with much problems around it. The anthem,
00:09:30.800 O Canada, only became the official anthem in 1980. This constitution that everybody waves around,
00:09:35.680 the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1982, that's not Canada. Canada is deeper and older and greater
00:09:41.180 than that. And so we want to be loyal to that and not just accept anything they say.
00:09:46.180 I don't want to get too deep into it because we can, you know, BS baffles brains is what they
00:09:51.780 used to write on the board. BSBB used to go on the board when I went to school. But you look back
00:09:58.840 on the first Trudeau for a lot of the problems Canada's dealing with now. Completely. He took
00:10:04.660 something that we had a defined national unity, a way that people could talk about Canada as
00:10:10.780 something greater than maple syrup and hockey. And he said, I don't like that. And he made a
00:10:14.960 systematic effort to break it down. And the culmination of that was the charter and the
00:10:19.980 constitution he promulgated. It wasn't about freedoms. We had the freedoms as Canadians.
00:10:24.600 Yeah. It's interesting. You can almost say that the Trudeaus have bookended the destruction of
00:10:28.920 Canada. Yes. That's kind of, I never thought of it until this very moment. Now, here's what I, 1.00
00:10:33.700 now, so are you, are you a large group of people? Are you a growing group of people?
00:10:38.480 Have you got a network of people? Tell us about Renew Alberta and what you're doing right now.
00:10:44.140 We're very small right now, but we've just launched. So we're hoping to grow and definitely
00:10:48.100 go to RenewAlberta.ca and sign up. I did today. Yeah. And we want to grow, but we are a small
00:10:55.080 group. Basically, I've never wanted to be on the front side of the camera as far as things go,
00:10:59.500 but I believe there's a message that's not being said and I want to say it.
00:11:04.820 Now, I have some concerns with what's going on right now. I mentioned off the top, we've seen
00:11:12.260 the Centurion Group, Let's Talk Alberta. I think all of them are leading towards
00:11:16.520 the independents and all want Alberta independence. But I remember when I first
00:11:21.160 got involved and was interested in this, it was 2017, 2018, I attended my first meeting in 2019.
00:11:27.840 It was called Wexit at that point. It's where I got this out. I've said it on my channel before.
00:11:32.940 But after that, there were different groups who were sort of beating heads against each other.
00:11:39.320 And the movement never moved forward because there were conflicting messages out there. And it
00:11:45.000 wasn't until last year when Alberta Prosperity Project and then Stay Free Alberta kind of brought
00:11:50.980 everybody together. Are you concerned that your message is going to conflict with what's been
00:11:56.600 accomplished so far? And I think the important thing is that we're all swimming in the same
00:12:01.080 direction. We all want independence. And part of what we're all talking about for the future of
00:12:06.080 Alberta is we need to actually figure out what that future looks like. For me, a big thing is
00:12:11.180 I think there's a lot of people who are afraid of the future and what it might look like.
00:12:15.580 Better the devil I know than the devil I don't.
00:12:18.180 And what I want to say is, you know what?
00:12:19.740 The devil that we don't see over the hill, there's no way it could be worse than what we have now.
00:12:24.520 But let's change as little as we have to and then slowly adjust.
00:12:29.780 Do you hope to coordinate with the different groups that are involved?
00:12:34.040 Maybe stand shoulder to shoulder, a little solidarity here.
00:12:36.700 Definitely.
00:12:36.960 Because we are working towards the same thing.
00:12:38.380 Yeah, we're all on the same team, and it's one of the things also that I'm a little bit uncomfortable with is fighting among conservatives or among people who have different values.
00:12:46.660 Well, I've heard a lot of that over the last couple of weeks, a lot of it, yeah.
00:12:49.800 And it's a Christian principle.
00:12:51.980 I'm a Christian, and I believe that we have to love each other and try to understand each other and not attack each other.
00:12:58.760 Jesus himself said, if you're not against me, you're for me, and that's the way that I live, is, you know what?
00:13:04.120 if we're walking in the same direction, we can present our visions of what the future looks like.
00:13:09.120 And then Albertans are big enough and strong enough to decide what that looks like. But if
00:13:13.920 we attack each other, if I go to you and I say, well, I don't like the way, exactly the cut of
00:13:17.820 your jib, or you're not saying exactly the right message, and I throw you off the bus, we're doing
00:13:21.620 harm. If we all want the same objective, in Alberta, there's actually room to be different.
00:13:27.980 We're not the federal government trying to make everybody believe and act and look exactly the
00:13:33.220 same way. Let's model that in the movement. Do you hope to be doing events and activities like
00:13:37.960 we've seen around the province with these other groups? And with Stay for Alberta, they've been
00:13:41.960 out there doing dozens, if not hundreds of events at this point. Is that what you're expecting to do?
00:13:46.280 They're doing really good on that. We probably are doing more in trying to help people think
00:13:50.760 through issues and shape ideas. There may be time when we need to do events, but the primary thing
00:13:56.340 is to think it through and present ideas to people that they can take on and think through.
00:14:02.220 How do you plan on doing that?
00:14:04.160 We're doing right now videos.
00:14:05.720 We're doing articles.
00:14:06.740 I'm doing meetings with different people.
00:14:08.580 We're trying to connect with as many people as we can.
00:14:10.860 Social media, things like that?
00:14:11.900 Social media.
00:14:12.900 Trying to, yeah, spread a message.
00:14:15.440 Because I've really appreciated what Stay Free Alberta, APP, many of the other groups, Chris Scott, like you're saying, are doing in having meetings.
00:14:23.580 I think all of us need to just think through what we're saying a little bit more.
00:14:27.900 And I'm hoping to help with that.
00:14:29.500 Do you hope to maybe sit down with some of these people to discuss? Maybe you're focusing on those people who are in the mushy middle and the ones who are complete no's right now. Do you plan on trying to coordinate in order that you can get your message out and they can be talking about something else?
00:14:45.920 A hundred percent. We want to try to connect with people. I'm not opposed to meeting with people. In fact, I say, you know, if I can talk to one person or a hundred people about Alberta and independence, I'm happy to do it. And so we want to be effective as we can and try to move people from no to yes or from maybe to for sure. And however that's the best able to be done, we're willing to do it.
00:15:07.860 Now you have all of the different organizations. They've got a donate page. What will money go towards if they want to donate to your organization?
00:15:15.920 So if you want to donate to us, the primary thing is we're trying to build the reach of
00:15:19.780 our message.
00:15:20.220 So it's about advertising.
00:15:21.740 It's about connecting with people.
00:15:23.600 Things like paying for gas is actually important these days, courtesy of Kearney and the economy,
00:15:28.840 bless their hearts.
00:15:29.340 So there will be some practical administrative sides, but the majority is going towards message 1.00
00:15:34.360 amplification because that is what we really need is to counteract the Canadian or the
00:15:40.240 Forever Canada type message and also get the word out to everybody that it's not scary to think of
00:15:46.620 independence. It's not traitorous to think of independence. We are the real Canada.
00:15:50.780 You, what do you think of our chances here? I always ask people, you know, we're looking,
00:15:57.980 well, first off, we've got to get the question. We'll get the, we'll get those signatures in and
00:16:02.200 hopefully we get the question. Are you assured that we're going to get a question? It'll be in
00:16:05.720 October. What do you think our chances are right now? Thankfully, we have a provincial government
00:16:10.720 that does listen to Albertans. That's something that we should be really thankful for. They may
00:16:18.260 not always be swimming our direction. Premier Danielle Smith has said she wants a united Canada,
00:16:22.620 but she's big enough to recognize that she's not the authoritarian dictator of Alberta.
00:16:27.760 So I'm confident we'll have a question. Yeah. How do you feel that Danielle Smith has done?
00:16:33.500 obviously she's saying that she wants, you know, Alberta to stay in Canada, but she has been very
00:16:39.220 helpful all along. Do you think it does any good to, to go after her in a big way when she made
00:16:43.760 it easier for us to get the signatures and she created bill 14 so that we could get the signatures?
00:16:48.480 What do you think of that? I think it's unproductive. I think we have to, she may not
00:16:52.980 be the perfect image of an independence leader that we want, but she has allowed Albertans to
00:16:59.100 have their say. And when the courts tried to get in the way once already, she stopped them. I believe 0.99
00:17:04.780 that even if the court, unfortunately, I don't have a lot of confidence in the court. Even if
00:17:09.000 the court does try to stop it, I do believe that she will allow Albertans to have their say. Not
00:17:13.600 because she's pro-independence, despite what Nenshi says, but because she actually does value
00:17:19.540 the principle that Albertans are in charge of Alberta, and she's not. So I'm confident that
00:17:25.100 we will have the question. RenewAlberta.ca, just in closing, obviously you want people to sign up.
00:17:31.100 There's a place you put your name and your email address in there so you can get probably
00:17:34.880 correspondence through you. That's why I signed up for it. What else can people do to participate?
00:17:38.920 Do connect with us. If you have questions, I want to talk to you. If you want to participate,
00:17:43.020 we do need volunteers. We do need people who say, hey, I'm willing to help in whatever way. We had
00:17:47.360 a guy sign up and say, hey, I'm good with web stuff. What can I do? People who are willing to
00:17:51.980 say, hey, I want to grab five people and get them in a room and talk about this issue.
00:17:56.520 Any way that you feel like you can be involved, I want to do it. And especially we want to work
00:18:00.600 with everyone else. This is not us going a different direction.
00:18:04.880 Right. And that when I first thought about, and I was, you were brought to my attention,
00:18:09.280 that was what I was concerned about. I'm concerned about these groups going their own way. We can end
00:18:13.960 up with a lot of egos involved, you know, and I don't want to see that happen. Matthew Raleigh,
00:18:18.220 President Renew Alberta. First person to share the big blue mug with me, by the way. So let's
00:18:23.320 do that. I appreciate you being here. I hope to talk to you again in the future. Best of luck.
00:18:28.240 We're all working towards the same goal, folks. We want independence. And if you can help out with
00:18:33.780 what Matthew's doing, with what State Free Alberta is doing, or any of the other groups,
00:18:37.920 be sure to do that. So many people have said to me, Matthew, over the time that we've been
00:18:42.240 talking about independence, John, thank you for all you do. I always turn it back on them and
00:18:47.640 saying you're the person sitting out here in the cold.
00:18:50.360 You're getting one signature at a time.
00:18:52.320 You're the person showing up at these events.
00:18:54.440 You can do your bit as well.
00:18:56.020 So I thank you for what you do.
00:18:58.020 Thank you.
00:18:58.860 Pleasure.
00:18:59.700 Nice to meet you.
00:19:00.700 Thanks for coming to my home.
00:19:02.000 If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up,
00:19:04.320 subscribe to the channel,
00:19:05.700 ring the bell for notifications.
00:19:07.040 I will see you in the next one.
00:19:09.240 Hear, hear.