John Bolton - November 30, 2025


Alberta Independence Has Company - Saskatchewan Is Leaving Too


Episode Stats

Length

18 minutes

Words per Minute

212.73236

Word Count

3,952

Sentence Count

260

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Brad Williams, President of the Saskatchewan Prosperity Project joins me on the show to talk about the project and what it's all about. We talk about what it means to be a part of a movement and why it's important to have other people in the fight.


Transcript

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
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.
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.