Mitch Sylvester, CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project, joins me on the show to talk about where we stand in the process of Alberta getting a referendum on independence from Canada. We talk about the process that has been going on since the petition was filed on May 23rd, and where things stand now.
00:02:50.220You know what, we've, this is a first, this is a brand new thing.
00:02:53.080We've asked multiple questions and we need to have them replied to us in writing by Elections Alberta
00:02:58.860based on the rules around this, because they're very unclear, as a lot of government policy is actually very unclear in this particular case.
00:03:06.280So we're just waiting for a response from them, understanding that the premier and we're hoping the UCP government put that in good faith
00:03:13.640to allow us to actually do this kind of thing, you know, just based on this, on this particular question
00:03:19.360and on any other question, actually, I think was part of the whole reason that they did this,
00:03:24.560because if they wanted other things dealt with, like Alberta policing, Alberta pension plan,
00:03:30.580or any of the other stuff, that this is the path where we can bring this to a referendum and get the people to vote.
00:03:35.800I'm, you know, I'm feeling, I'm feeling pretty optimistic right now.
00:04:07.480Yeah. Are you optimistic? How are you feeling about it right now?
00:04:09.900Well, I am very optimistic. Actually, I'm surprised by the continuing response we're getting.
00:04:16.860And, and, and the other thing that I'm very surprised about, that makes me feel optimism as well,
00:04:21.760is that the fact that 50 to 60% of the people in the room have never been to a political meeting before.
00:04:27.480And the other, and the other thing I'm seeing is young moms with babies and young people, you know,
00:04:32.740traditionally our, our, our political meetings were people over 45, even over 55.
00:04:37.780And now we're seeing a lot of 20 to 40 year olds attending these meetings and very much in support.
00:04:43.680So that all by itself makes me optimistic about this.
00:04:47.580The message is very strong. I mean, the message is very good.
00:04:50.600And we don't believe for one second that it's even partisan.
00:04:53.500We think that once people understand the numbers that, you know, both sides of the aisle are going to be very happy with,
00:04:59.520with the results of a yes vote and an Alberta referendum for independence.
00:05:03.520You know, I've watched a few videos of you. You describe Alberta as the richest real estate in the world.
00:05:09.600Financially, what would independence mean to a typical Albertan, an average Albertan out there?
00:05:16.300Well, it's funny that you should mention that we're just publishing a business plan.
00:05:19.240And we're going to probably have a press conference next week about it.
00:05:21.880And it's very clear. What does it mean to the average Albertan will probably be, I would suggest that the average Albertan can look for an immediate 20 to 25 percent increase in pay based on not having to pay federal tax.
00:05:34.760So say you're earning $70,000 a year, you know, you can be looking for $17,000 more disposable income based on the fact that we don't have to pay all of these ridiculous taxes that we're being charged.
00:05:48.880You don't have to convince me, Mitch. You know, I'm ready to sign. I'm ready to go. I really am.
00:05:54.380But what do you say to people who are sort of sitting on the fence?
00:05:56.720I saw an article, Rick Bell wrote about it today in the Calgary Sun. 58 percent of UCP voters in the province would vote to leave right now.
00:06:04.82011 percent of them are unsure. So, I mean, they had almost a million people vote for the UCP.
00:06:09.900That means, you know, upwards of 500 to 600,000 people would vote right now to go.
00:06:14.080What do you say to people who are kind of sitting on the fence? Maybe that 11 percent I mentioned.
00:06:18.480I think that once they understand the numbers, I don't think they'll be sitting on the fence anymore.
00:06:21.960And the other thing that they have to understand is this.
00:06:23.880We have a dysfunctional relationship with the federal government of Canada.
00:06:28.100And I mean, it's become clearer and clearer and clearer the further down the road we go.
00:07:39.900This position, this position actually happened after the last federal election and not just for me.
00:07:44.860I think I think at that point, I think Albertans in general are the ones that we're dealing with for sure had lost hope in Canada.
00:07:53.940And many people are actually to the point where, you know what, they're ready to do this, they're ready for change based on the fact that they don't feel that there's any way out of this.
00:08:03.040Our fourth consecutive liberal government and the fact that their behavior basically shows us that they don't really want us in this country, actually, to tell you the honest to God truth.
00:08:13.700They're happy to take our resources and our and our money, but they don't want to treat us with any respect.
00:09:06.280I mean, you know, once a relationship and once a trust is gone and once a relationship is severed, we totally understand that with 82 ethics violations, the liberal governments are basically criminals.
00:09:18.260They're basically taking money from Albertans.
00:09:20.520And if you do not, we cannot, these people do not go to jail for the stuff that they do.
00:09:26.980Like, one ethics violation after another ethics violation, any one of which would have brought down any of the previous government.
00:09:34.440And they had, like, 82 from what I understand.
00:09:36.780So, you know, Arrive Can, we, Progain Parliament for $400 million missing, printing 327 or however many billion dollars they did during COVID with no audit, no tracing the money, infrastructure projects with actually no projects that happened, but the money gets transferred over.
00:09:59.860So the purpose of this whole exercise is that, and the premier said this to me in meetings, in public meetings, actually, she said, and I quote her on this.
00:10:10.060She said that when I became premier, I thought that I could change everything in six or seven months, but everything's broken.
00:10:16.540Everything's broken means everything's basically so crap that you can't fix it.
00:10:24.140And so if that's actually the case, and Pierre Polyev actually says the same thing, and you can Google it and find it online anywhere, he said everything's broken.
00:10:33.420So we're seeing all manner of unprecedented stuff going on now.
00:10:38.180Everybody knows that something is off-center.
00:10:47.280We're seeing stuff that, you know, as a person of my generation, we never ever thought would be even a conversation in Canada.
00:10:53.080Even the fact that the federal government, for whatever reason, is attacking our biggest industry is something that's beyond comprehension for me, literally.
00:11:25.160I'm not saying that it wasn't possible before.
00:11:30.260Because with the amount of activity that we saw right after the federal election, I think for everybody to get one more person to get us to 600,000 would have been doable.
00:11:41.060So now that people understand we have enough people in our group to actually make this happen, people have backed off a little bit.
00:11:48.720But what we're seeing at town halls is that people are coming out.
00:11:53.160People are signing their intent to sign.
00:11:56.060And, yeah, and the thing, the wonderful thing about it is, is that 60% of the people that come or 80% of the people that come in a lot of cases have not signed our intent to sign already.
00:12:09.280So that's telling me that even though we've got somewhere in a neighborhood of 260,000 to 270,000 people with pledges, the vast majority of our people have not pledged.
00:12:18.980I've been a little bit concerned along the way, Mitch, about really not having a face of this campaign.
00:12:24.420There's a number of different people kind of leading the way.
00:12:45.400And the reason why we're doing this consciously is here's the problem.
00:12:49.860The people of Alberta have to be the face of this.
00:12:52.720The people of Alberta are going to be the ones that ultimately decide this.
00:12:55.900They're going to go to a constitutional conference after this, and they're going to participate in that.
00:12:59.740And they're going to forever have to participate in a democracy moving forward because that is how we got here.
00:13:08.060What's happened is because of our apathy that we ended up coming here.
00:13:11.320Well, let's not mistake the fact that we have real good lives here in Alberta for the most part.
00:13:15.100Up until just recently in the last couple or three years, people here always had the opportunity that they worked hard.
00:13:21.600They could, you know, earn a lot of money and become basically as wealthy as you almost want.
00:13:28.180By the amount of work ethic and making a smart decision or two here, you could do very, very well, as a lot of us have done.
00:13:35.100And, you know, I mean, there's a lot of people in Bonneville.
00:13:37.620That's, like I said, the heart of the oil patch.
00:13:39.480So there's a lot of people there that have come off of, you know, dirt poor farms and have now become very, very wealthy people based on a real good work ethic.
00:13:49.140And those down, but up and working hard for years and years and have actually earned a lot of money.
00:15:00.160Okay, so indigenous have rights to the land because of treaties.
00:15:04.760Well, the treaties gives them lots of rights, but I mean, the interpretation of the rights for the land.
00:15:09.420But we're not leaving indigenous people behind.
00:15:12.640I'm not in a position to talk about what their land rights are.
00:15:15.540I just know that all crown land in Alberta belongs to the government of Alberta.
00:15:18.260And that's for sure because I just went through a big undrip fight with, you know, basically the federal government on that and won that based on treaties that were signed by all parties concerned, aboriginal, Métis, farmers, trappers, all those people on caribou preservation just north of Bonneville.
00:15:35.040And it was very clear, it was made very clear that crown land in Alberta belongs to the government of Alberta.
00:15:47.780As a matter of fact, we want to try and make aboriginal people way richer by giving them, actually tripling their income and giving them the opportunity to come out of poverty and to give them a better life.
00:15:57.580We're not leaving those people behind, but I really believe that the people that have, well, I don't believe, I know, that we've showed our business plan to aboriginal chiefs and they're very excited about it.
00:16:07.140We really believe that we'll have them all on site.
00:16:09.660Yeah, you covered my next one regarding resources.
00:16:11.980A lot of people think that Canada owns the resources here in Alberta, so you covered that.
00:16:15.320What about seniors will lose their pensions?
00:16:17.900You know, I know that you are a strong advocate for an Alberta pension plan.
00:16:21.840I think you're nuts if you don't want to be part of an Alberta pension plan.
00:16:25.300Seniors are worried about their pensions.
00:16:27.580So just understand, CPP has a portability clause.
00:16:31.520So it doesn't matter if you live in the country of Panama or in Costa Rica or in France or anybody.
00:16:37.680As a Canadian citizen, you paid into that CPP.
00:16:41.260You're going to still get your Canada pension and your old age security.
00:16:44.140The other thing that you're not going to lose is your Canadian citizenship based on the fact that, you know, even our prime minister, Mark Carney, has like three or four passports.
00:16:52.360So those things are absolutely moot points.
00:16:57.580And in reality, Albertans work harder than anybody in Canada.
00:17:01.460We actually give Canada pension $3 billion a year more than our seniors collect.
00:17:06.900So even without, if they even pulled pension away from our seniors, just what we pay in Canada pension premiums would allow us to give them a 40% raise right off the bat and not change anything.
00:17:17.360Alberta independence talk is driving away investment, and it will drive away investment, Mitch.
00:17:29.440Lower tax rates and more disposable income in our region of Alberta based on a lower tax rate and based on that formula I told you Albertans will have between 25% and 45% more disposable income creates just the exact opposite environment.
00:17:45.520If we have lower tax rates and, you know, it's possible based on our business plan that in 10 years, Albertans won't have to pay income tax in any way, shape or form.
00:17:54.100So if that's actually the case, Alberta business is going to thrive.
00:18:26.160I honestly think that we have a very good chance to win this.
00:18:29.100And I actually think that it's going to be our job to get it in front of enough people so that they really understand what's going on and really understand the numbers.
00:18:36.000And once they understand it, it is going to be, people will be very much in favor of an independent Alberta.
00:19:17.960Sign our pledge commitment so that we know where you are because we only have 120 days to collect the signatures.
00:19:24.460You know, I've always said that if we have 250,000 members, if everybody donated $20 to $50 for us, we'd have lots of money to get this over the line.
00:19:33.360And that's what it's going to take for us to reach the young people and to pay our monthly expenses.