John Bolton - Alberta Independence Has Company - Saskatchewan Is Leaving Too

00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel. Great to have you along. I appreciate you clicking on

00:00:07.080 this video. Of course, I've got my big blue mug with me here. I always like it when I do these

00:00:11.260 Zoom calls as I can make my mug disappear. Wonderful to have you along. And today we've

00:00:16.540 got a special guest, as you can tell with me today. I've got Brad Williams, president

00:00:20.620 of the Saskatchewan Prosperity Project. No, not Alberta Prosperity Project,

00:00:26.380 the Saskatchewan Prosperity Project. And Brad, it's great to have you here on the channel.

00:00:31.520 Thanks for joining me today. Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

00:00:35.860 So when I heard about this, I got in touch with Gary, who helps out with the Alberta Prosperity

00:00:42.260 Project. So I want to talk to Brad. You know, I always say there's safety in numbers or it's

00:00:46.580 good to have other people part of the fight. But we have the Alberta Prosperity Project here

00:00:52.360 moving ahead with our petition and possible referendum. Where do you stand here, Brad,

00:00:58.000 in Saskatchewan? How are things looking? And are you just at the beginning of the process yourself?

00:01:02.760 We are five years behind Alberta Prosperity Project because we literally are a month old.

00:01:08.500 Okay.

00:01:09.420 So we're hitting the ground running. I'm doing town halls already. We have a website that was actually

00:01:17.040 created and we decided to change our logo and make it a little bit more closer to the Alberta

00:01:21.500 Prosperity Project. So we want to go with a whole new look and we want to put a whole lot of

00:01:26.520 information on there. And thankfully, the Alberta Prosperity Project has been excellent.

00:01:31.880 They've given us their full support. We can help ourselves to any of their materials.

00:01:36.600 You know, of course, some we have to tweak to Saskatchewan values because, of course,

00:01:39.620 you know, we aren't sending as much to Ottawa because we have such a smaller population.

00:01:43.860 But, you know, just things that are very relative to us. And we've got our Facebook page,

00:01:52.080 Saskatchewan Prosperity Project, up and running. That one will have all the events posted on it.

00:01:58.080 I've got four town halls next week and I can send you that information as well as we have

00:02:04.040 an ex-account, I believe, that just got set up. So we're kind of quickly pulling that whole structure

00:02:11.240 together, trying to get out to the communities and get some chapters set up, get people involved

00:02:16.280 and get them to know that we're there and that we want to get going. We want to catch up to you guys.

00:02:21.780 Yeah, send me all that information. I'll put it on the screen so people can follow. It'll be in the

00:02:25.200 description as well. The website is skprosperityproject.ca. I'm so glad you didn't put the whole

00:02:30.540 province. I was thinking about it. Oh my God, I'm going to type this whole thing out. That's

00:02:36.020 great. There's not a lot there right now. There is an email address at the bottom of the page if

00:02:39.900 you want to get in touch with Brad and the project. It must be nice to know that you've got the Alberta

00:02:44.820 Prosperity Project there. We're so pleased with Mitch Sylvester, Dennis Modry, Jeff Rath, all of the

00:02:50.820 volunteers, all of the people working so hard with the Alberta Prosperity Project. They've had some

00:02:54.760 stumbles along the way. You can learn from that and you don't have to make a lot of those stumbles

00:02:58.980 yourself, right? And that's the beauty of it because the way I see it, we've got about

00:03:04.720 less than a year to try to catch up and do five years of what they've done. So for us to basically

00:03:10.100 start right where they are right now and that's our starting point and if we can get all the

00:03:15.220 experience and all the downfalls and all the little, because you run into things that you do

00:03:19.040 one way and you look back and went, oh, we should have thought bigger or something, right? So just setting

00:03:23.880 up all our structure. I've got a really good team behind me that's working hard behind

00:03:28.960 the scenes and yeah, we want to catch up to you guys because when you go, we want to be right in

00:03:35.200 your back pocket and go with you. Well, I just did an interview with Jeff Rath, court cases as well,

00:03:39.840 so maybe you can get that stuff out of the way before you have to do it in the future. You know,

00:03:43.920 what's really interesting about this is something I was thinking about before I started this interview,

00:03:47.280 Brad was back, was it the spring? There was a poll. Saskatchewan's further ahead when it comes to

00:03:53.040 independence than Alberta was. More people and Saskatchewan were interested in independence. What are your

00:03:58.480 gripes with Ottawa? I know what mine are here in Alberta. What are yours?

00:04:03.280 How much time do we have on this? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

00:04:08.160 Well, I mean, you know, I mean, I think like, uh,

00:04:11.520 Mitch Sylvester, and I actually use this, uh, quote, you know, where Sipton, who was one of the

00:04:16.880 parliamentarians at the time in 1904, you know, basically in his book said that they wanted to

00:04:23.360 use the wealth of the prairies to help fund everything in the East. And so I've never ever

00:04:28.880 didn't never seen that before, but when you think about it, it's still happening, you know,

00:04:32.960 so 120 years, you know, we've been screaming from the West here, you know, they had the energy program

00:04:37.280 in the eighties that, you know, totally, you know, crushed everything here. And the whole reason they

00:04:41.760 didn't want the West to be more prosperous or more powerful than the East. So being, we, we've been just

00:04:47.920 totally like put in, you know, a place where we were always having to fight to be, to be able to

00:04:54.080 do what we're good at doing. You know, people in this province built this province off blood,

00:04:57.760 sweat and tears. We like to work hard. We like to play hard. And, you know, when you have a

00:05:02.000 government that's supposed to be supporting you and then they, and then they turn around and they,

00:05:06.960 and they, they try to stop you at every turn. I think that's the biggest frustration.

00:05:11.920 The thing that, the thing that really stuck out with me was how much Carney was sticking up for

00:05:17.520 Doug Ford and his automotive industry. But when it came to canola and things like that,

00:05:22.000 hardly word was said for months about this 100% tariff that was put on that by, by China,

00:05:28.000 among other things. And, and I thought this is how we're ignored out here in the West.

00:05:32.320 And when you talk about sort of the work ethic of people here in the West, people out East don't

00:05:36.480 understand you. When you said that I'm thinking exactly the same thing here in Alberta, but that's

00:05:40.960 what I was thinking. They don't seem to give a damn when it comes to the tariffs out here,

00:05:46.000 but when it comes to the tariffs out East where it's vote rich, that's, that's the most important

00:05:50.560 thing. Well, you know, I, I mean, Easterners, I mean, no, no, like not discrediting anybody else

00:05:56.320 in Canada, not being like us. I mean, they're, they have their own Canadian culture and it just

00:06:00.720 kind of flows through the country. Right. I'm from there, Brad. My whole family lives in Ontario.

00:06:05.120 So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so, but you know, the, the, the Easterners just are different 0.98

00:06:11.920 than, than we are out West here. We just aren't of kind of the same cloth. I mean, there's nothing

00:06:16.560 wrong with that. No, but the biggest thing that I, I find really amusing is when you're actually

00:06:22.320 online and some, you know, I'm like, cause of course I'm, I've been following APP for a long time and

00:06:27.040 you get people from down East who make the comments, I know you guys are whiners or this,

00:06:31.680 that, and the other thing. Well, you're, you just, you just proved to us that's the problem.

00:06:36.960 You never listen. I've been screaming for 120 years. You know, let, let me throw this at you.

00:06:43.680 We are Northern Ontario, different story, but Southern parts, maybe not so much.

00:06:47.920 We, we are a distinct society. And that's what Quebec always says. We're a distinct folks.

00:06:54.640 We're just, we are, and I learned it when I moved out here 15 years ago, it's totally different.

00:07:01.680 And I talk about the people saying we're whiners. They don't get us at all. So let's talk a little

00:07:06.480 bit about what you've been doing. You said you've been going out and doing some meetings. How are

00:07:10.000 they going so far? You know, actually I've been really, really, it's been exciting. Um,

00:07:15.760 I did the Meadow Lake. Uh, we had about 80 people. I would be my guess. I didn't get a chance to count

00:07:20.880 that one. Uh, Prince Albert, we had 150 is what somebody had counted. And, uh, last night in leader,

00:07:26.880 we had 35, uh, you know, so for first meetings, you know, I think that's awesome. I mean, you have

00:07:32.800 to start somewhere. And the reality is, I think, because there's been other things that have happened

00:07:36.800 in the past in the province, uh, unified grassroots had kind of started off. And then when the Dean

00:07:41.600 Ness, who was kind of heading up that stepped aside, it kind of went flat. And I know for myself,

00:07:45.760 that's why I went looking for somebody else because I was wanting to get involved at that point.

00:07:50.480 So I think, you know, with just some different, you know, political parties over the years where

00:07:54.400 things kind of start out really good and then you just fall flat. Yeah. A lot of people have that,

00:07:59.360 that, uh, you know, like, Oh, here we go again, we're going to do all this work and then it's just

00:08:03.040 going to peter out. Uh, all I can tell you is I'm here for the long haul. I actually left a 35 year

00:08:08.800 career and retired early that I wanted to, to do this because it's that important. Right.

00:08:15.280 Right. Yeah. Well, you, you say that I went to my first meeting, um, when it came to independence

00:08:21.920 back in 2019, about 1200 people showed up at a big school in North Calgary here.

00:08:27.440 And I was concerned because there were a lot of, it was called Wexit at that point. There were a

00:08:31.840 whole bunch of independence groups and I was kind of put off because none of them were working

00:08:36.000 together. And then along comes the Alberta prosperity project. And I've spoken to Ron Robertson

00:08:41.360 from the independence party here. I've spoken with Jeevan Mangat from the wild rose independence party

00:08:45.920 here, different independence groups who are in all in when it comes to the Alberta prosperity

00:08:51.200 project. So you've got this one group bringing everybody together and that is very important.

00:08:56.240 So what I want, I'll put up a card so everybody can see your meetings coming up. Maybe I'll just

00:09:01.200 give you some advice here. You're not going to get a lot of media coverage, mainstream media,

00:09:06.320 traditional media, legacy media, do podcasts. Would we want it? It'll be lies anyways.

00:09:13.360 Well, yeah, but they're not going to cover you that much. You do podcasts. I mean, honestly,

00:09:18.320 I can't tell you how many people have said to me, I went to this event because I saw

00:09:22.880 Mitch on your channel, or I saw this, or you mentioned this. And so make sure you do lots of

00:09:26.960 podcasts just because you'll get tens of thousands of views on that. And you'll spread your message

00:09:31.120 really quickly. And when you get those people showing up, you're going to get two,

00:09:34.240 300 people at a time. You're going to find out that, that you're getting your message out there.

00:09:38.560 You have a commitment to vote as well. Now I signed up with the Alberta prosperity project. It's not a,

00:09:44.000 it doesn't mean you're voting yes in a referendum, but you're looking for a commitment to vote as

00:09:48.240 well. How can they do that? Yeah. So I'll just give you a quick history. So the unified grassroots,

00:09:54.480 when they were wanting to do, uh, like they wanted to get something going at that point,

00:09:58.320 they thought they'd be able to collect signatures for petition and submit that. And then they can force a

00:10:03.520 plebiscite. We found out there's a few more hurdles we may have to go through. We have,

00:10:07.200 you know, uh, some people working on that. So, um, as soon as I became elected president and got

00:10:14.800 involved, there's another group called Prairie Rising Forum. Uh, they've been working a lot on

00:10:20.480 extensively on that legal pathway, like just finding the right path. Uh, and they, and they're really

00:10:26.400 wonderful people. So I wanted, like you said, you want everybody working together. So I reached out

00:10:31.440 to both groups and I said, like, instead of trying to compete and, you know, us having,

00:10:35.120 you know, splitting up a town, like half are with us, half are with you, and we're all going,

00:10:39.600 doing the same thing. And you're kind of focused on that, you know, I'm doing the legal pathway.

00:10:43.840 I can focus on building the numbers up. So when you need the signatures, we're here for you.

00:10:49.520 So that's kind of where we've come to an agreement and, uh, unified grassroots is going to be working

00:10:55.440 with us. They're kind of going on a little bit of a different path. I don't know the exact

00:10:58.640 description that might be more kind of town halls about local issues, but we are going to all work

00:11:02.960 together. We are all committed to working together and all the, all the names that we

00:11:07.600 do collect will be, we shared like commonly between the three. So when you ask the process,

00:11:12.640 uh, yes, the, we have a, uh, a QR code that I'll send you, uh, yeah, they can scan that,

00:11:20.480 put in their name and their address and email and all that information. And there's some other

00:11:24.960 questions on there if they want a newsletter and all that kind of stuff. Uh, the beautiful

00:11:29.600 thing about that is once we have that in our system, as soon as we, we, we get a word from

00:11:35.840 Prairie Rising that they need signatures, we've got the master list. We can go to that. We can,

00:11:40.400 we can connect with everybody and get everybody out to make the signatures. So, you know, we don't

00:11:44.800 think it's going to be once we think it might be twice or three times we might have to go through

00:11:48.400 this process. So it's really, really vital that people, you know, to get on there and see that,

00:11:53.920 you know, when it comes time that they're willing to sign, uh, information that they want to get

00:11:58.080 involved and help volunteering, you know, cause we'll need people to collect signatures too.

00:12:01.120 We'll need a huge army for that. So, you know, if you have, everybody puts in an hour or two and

00:12:06.800 we've got, you know, three or 4,000 people, we can make really short work of this and make it so much

00:12:12.080 easier to get those done. You, uh, you talk about volunteer, you need volunteers, uh, these events

00:12:18.720 that you do, they take time, they take effort. You've got to put things up, um, and you need

00:12:23.200 volunteers. Can, can people go to the website or put the website up at the bottom? There's an email

00:12:28.480 address. Is that the best way to contact you right now? Yes. Um, the, the website is kind of,

00:12:36.560 kind of half developed. We're actually moving servers to a really secure server right now. And that's why

00:12:40.960 kind of all that's on hold. Brad, you've only been around for a month. That's okay.

00:12:47.600 How many people have right away? Well, why isn't there this? Why is there that?

00:12:50.800 Because it takes, it takes time to build that structure and you want to write, you know,

00:12:54.480 and it has to be done solid, right? Yep. So our website will be quick. Like we're going to basically

00:12:59.760 copy a lot of AP, APPs and, you know, like I said, put the scotch and flavor on, and then we'll

00:13:05.440 start adding our own stuff and, and building it from there. So, you know, when, when that finally

00:13:10.800 hits where we got that domain secure and we've got, you know, we can move everything over,

00:13:15.920 all of a sudden, boom, there's going to be a lot of the site popping up. So if they,

00:13:19.360 they just go to that, keep going to that web address, they will eventually see a new page and

00:13:24.640 then know that that's, we're good to go. Escape prosperityproject.ca email address on the

00:13:30.000 screen as well. So people can get in touch if they want to volunteer. I know it's only been a month.

00:13:34.480 Well, we're looking, I'm sorry, go ahead. If they actually use that QR code,

00:13:40.800 they can actually sign to volunteer right on there. Everything's included on there.

00:13:44.960 Okay. That, that makes it much easier. I know it's only been a month. We're looking,

00:13:50.720 I mean, I've, I've spoken with Keith Wilson here, the lawyer, Keith at the Alberta legislature,

00:13:55.360 when I was there said, you know, next year, we're going to have a referendum here. He's a hundred

00:13:59.520 percent sure. Jeff Rath has said that. Dennis Modry has said that. Mitch Sylvester has said

00:14:05.520 that we're going to have a referendum here. Have you got any idea how long, how far down the road?

00:14:09.600 Again, it's only been a month if you don't know, but what are you planning here? How,

00:14:12.960 how long before you think you might be able to get to the same place Alberta is right now?

00:14:17.760 Well, I would like that to be tomorrow, of course, but you know, without knowing exactly

00:14:24.000 what pathway we have to take, because there's a lot of little things that, that they're finding that

00:14:28.480 are kind of put in as roadblocks. I'm sure it's intentional. You know, so we, you know,

00:14:34.640 they're working really hard to try to make that a much more streamlined process where we can do much

00:14:38.960 faster and, you know, they might have to nudge the, you know, SaaS party that's in, in power here

00:14:44.960 to maybe make some tweaks or changes so that it makes it a little bit more of a clear path.

00:14:49.760 Yes. Yes. Scott Moe has said that he would support, you know, the people having a voice and,

00:14:55.040 and having that say. So I guess we're going to test his word. You know, we're going to see if

00:14:59.920 he really met what he said, or if that's just, you know, politics.

00:15:03.520 Because Danielle Smith in Alberta did make it easier for us to get signatures to, and

00:15:08.480 to have a referendum because the threshold was pretty high before. If I remember correctly,

00:15:12.960 it's around 177,000 names on a petition, which we already have in a database at the Alberta Prosperity

00:15:18.880 Project. Just before I leave you, I want to encourage people to go out to one of these meetings.

00:15:24.080 Go out. First off, I've been to the ones for the Alberta Prosperity Project.

00:15:27.840 They're so much fun and there's an electricity in the room you've never felt before because

00:15:32.400 you're thinking of forming a new country and you're on sort of on the ground floor of making

00:15:38.480 that happen. And I've said that to Mitch before, isn't this exciting? Somewhere down the road,

00:15:42.560 your name could be written in history and you could be part of this. So go out to one of the meetings.

00:15:46.480 And again, here are the meetings. I'll put them on the screen so people can go out to them

00:15:50.640 and make sure you keep looking at the website to find out other ones, but they're a lot of fun.

00:15:55.520 It's exciting, isn't it, Brad?

00:15:57.040 It is. I'd like to give me a few seconds.

00:15:59.520 Sure.

00:16:02.480 You know, a new nation, you know, creating a new country. We always hear that, oh,

00:16:06.320 we can't do it because of this. We can't do it because of that. Every country, every country that's

00:16:11.040 ever existed started just like this. People who want to change, people who want something better.

00:16:16.640 And, you know, the people are scared. They got lots of concerns, questions. What happens to CPP?

00:16:22.160 What about being landlocked? All these questions. Well, we have the answers. Come out to a meeting.

00:16:26.000 That's how you'll find those answers. If you think right now in your head that you want to stay in

00:16:30.560 Canada, I have a question for you. Name me one good reason, one benefit for us to stay in Canada.

00:16:37.280 I can't think of one that we can't do on our own.

00:16:39.520 Well, the question I like to ask, Brad, is if if Alberta wasn't a province of Canada right now,

00:16:46.960 would we join? Well, of course, I would say no. And I think a lot of people say, you know what,

00:16:52.720 even people who are who have the, you know, the patriotism with Canada, you know, maybe I wouldn't

00:16:57.760 join because things could probably be better if we're on our own. So that's the question I like to

00:17:01.440 ask. Well, like what has Canada done for my family in the last 10 years, except make more and more,

00:17:06.240 you know, create more and more taxes, make things more harder to obtain, you know? You know, so,

00:17:12.080 yeah, it's just one of those situations where, I mean, I think we're so patriotic. We're so proud

00:17:17.920 to be Canada, but that Canada is gone and it's been gone for about 10 years here. It's just been

00:17:22.400 eroding. And if we don't become our own independent nation and protect that, we won't have those values

00:17:28.480 at all. Canada in all of our hearts. But you know, the question I like to ask people is if you woke up

00:17:33.440 this morning in Saskatchewan was its own province or country, are you going to like pack up and

00:17:38.880 leave to some other Canadian province just to say you're Canadian? You know, 90% of the people say

00:17:44.000 no. And the reason is because we're Saskatchewanians or we're Albertans. We're proud of where we are.

00:17:49.280 You'll never take the Canadian out of our hearts.

00:17:52.400 You know, Corey Morgan said here on this channel before he said, you know, Canada will still be there,

00:17:56.400 you know, and Edna will still be in Toronto or you'll have somebody who lives out in Newfoundland. 1.00

00:18:00.320 They'll still be there. We'll just have a different relationship than we had before.

00:18:04.480 And I think that's a good way maybe to end this. Good luck to you. It's exciting. Send me all that

00:18:09.280 info. We'll get it up there. And if you have anything going on in the future, you let me know

00:18:12.640 about it. I'd like to have you back on again, Brad. Anytime you want me, I'll be back for you.

00:18:17.200 Okay, Brad Williams. I'm sorry, what was that? Thank you very much for the time.

00:18:22.480 Oh, it's a pleasure. Brad Williams, president of the Saskatchewan Prosperity Project.

00:18:26.880 Thanks a lot for watching this. If you liked the video, give it a thumbs up,

00:18:30.240 subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for notifications. I will see you in the next one.

John Bolton - November 30, 2025

Alberta Independence Has Company - Saskatchewan Is Leaving Too

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