Social concerns part of drive to separate, says Alberta Independence Movement leader

A portion of Albertans are continuing to fight to see their province separate from the rest of Canada.

On The Evan Bray Show on Tues, May 12, Mitch Sylvestre, leader of the Alberta Independence Movement, joined host Evan Bray to discuss its submission of more than 300,000 signatures, hoping to trigger a referendum. Sylvestre also explored next steps for the group and why he wants to see Alberta separate.

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Listen to the full interview, or read the transcript below:

The following questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

EVAN BRAY: You’ve been a businessman your whole life?

MITCH SYLVESTRE: I’m still in business. I started a sporting goods business as a 21-year-old, fresh out of university, and we’re still running it. It’s a family business, and you know what? It’s still doing very well.

Talk about what got you, not only interested in, but interested to the point of leading this Alberta Independence Movement.

SYLVESTRE: It was COVID. They shut my business down, and Canadian Tire and Walmart were opened 20 minutes down the road. And I looked at that, I said, “This is not fair. Coming from a guy that didn’t know left from right, never been in politics before, I’ve never had any idea about what was going on. And then, to quote my new friend, Mr. (Paul St-Pierre) Plamondon from Quebec, “Once you see the corruption, you can’t unsee it.” And now I’m very, very, very clear on the fact that we live in a very, very corrupt society, and that the only path for salvation for Alberta is to get away from those people.

I would say the notion of western separation has been a topic of discussion for decades. How is this different?

SYLVESTRE: I think the notion of western separation was basically based on economics. That was held true back then, and still holds true. Alberta sends $47 billion net annually to Ottawa, of which we didn’t get none of that back. So we actually send $70 billion, but we they give us $23 billion back. So they get to keep $47 billion of what we send to them every year. Yet, we’re running deficit budgets here in Alberta. But the other part of it that’s very, very, very much the difference right now is the social part of it. The social part of it is, for example, what happened during COVID and all the nonsense that the governments keep throwing on Alberta. They’re crippling our industry and they’re doing it on purpose, and we totally understand that, but that’s costing all Canadians money and jobs. And the other thing is that right now, we’re dealing with a crisis. As far as I’m personally concerned, nobody seems to want to define what Mr. Carney is calling the new world order, and I’ve called on our premier to define the new world order. For me, it’s flat-out communism. So Mr. Carney is pushing what I consider to be communism onto the people of Canada, and I don’t think it’s ever worked anywhere and I’m absolutely positive I don’t want anything to do with it. And I for sure, don’t want anything to do with it if they’re not going to tell us what it is. Now yesterday, Mr. (Jason) Kenney was on the news and saying that we’re going to line up with Europe, which I found extremely interesting. And what I want to know is, are we going … to take their debt as well, because they have this massive debt that they can’t deal with? And Europe is at war, and there’s been people talking about this, if we join with Europe, then it would be possible that they could conscript our kids and send them to war in Europe. And I don’t want any of that happen to us. So I absolutely want to know what they’re talking about, and they’re not talking about it. They’re just saying, “Hey, you know, I’m in China. I’m talking to the leader of the Communist Chinese Party, Xi Jinping, and we’re going to announce a new world order – a system that lines up with communist China. How am I not going to make that connection when it’s actually doing it right there with him?

How is your relationship with Danielle Smith and the Government of Alberta – the Alberta Independence Movement and the government. What does that look like?

SYLVESTRE: That’s kind of two different things there. I’m a UCP. I’m a United Conservative Party member. I run a constituency association here. I was a consistency association chair of the year for the whole party two or three AGMs (annual general meetings) ago, and I was the top fundraiser. I won an award for the top fundraiser for the UCP for last year’s AGM. I’ve hosted four premiers dinners here for the premier. And you know what? I have a good relationship with the premier on it, we do talk. But she’s not on my page all the time, of course, and she’s the boss. She’s the premier. She’s been elected. So, yeah, that’s her job.

Let’s talk about what next steps are. So you’ve accumulated well above the threshold you had to meet. You’re up, I think, 302,000 (signatures), and my understanding is you could have kept going but you had to meet the deadline, so that was the number submitted. What are the next steps now?

SYLVESTRE: Let’s just go back to the number for a bit. Here’s a symptom of what’s going on in Canada. More people were afraid to sign this based on they didn’t want to be on a list, and they didn’t want their name on a list and they didn’t want their bank accounts frozen, basically, I believe, than actually signed. So people are scared of their government and that should tell you something. I think that’s critical to what we’re talking about, the social part of this. They terrified our people during COVID, and (that’s) an actual fact that still continues on and gives people pause to actually come out in public, to, you know, to say how they feel about this. So that’s the first part of that. And so what’s next step for us? A next step for us is to win the referendum vote.

What has to happen? Between now and then, the signatures that you have, if every one of those people voted in favor, it still wouldn’t be enough to win the vote. So can you talk about what you your plans are going forward between now and that potential vote?

SYLVESTRE: Well, I kind of alluded to the fact of what I think is happening, as far as the polling numbers are concerned. As far as the rest of the vote is, well, we’ve got five months to to tell people what we know is actually happening. We’ve asked many, many people – hundreds and thousands of people, including leaders in government – to give us one good reason why Alberta should stay in Confederation. And there is no answer. So it’s our job to absolutely educate the people as to what’s really going on. Short of elbows up, there’s no reason for us to stay in Canada. They basically abuse Alberta regularly, continue to do so, and we’re the only province that, I believe, from what I could see, didn’t get a major special project from the county government. I alluded to the fact that I had the premier at a premier’s dinner. We get to do a hot stove, and I get to ask her questions. I said to her, “How long are we going to give Mr. Carney? Because after 10 years of Mr. Trudeau, I’m not very optimistic that Alberta is going to end up with with anything.” Well, she said six months. And that was like four months ago, five months ago, and she still hasn’t gotten anything. She signed this memorandum of understanding with them, which is a horrible deal for Alberta, it’s going to increase the cost of producing a barrel of oil from $6 to $10 to $15 per barrel, and I don’t see how that could be good for our economy. So next steps for us are simple. We’ll get the information out there. The Premier is waiting for the results of the court case – that’s another thing, we’ve been in court non-stop from Elections Alberta from the beginning. Our second major court case, never mind all of the small things that we had to attend to prove that we were not doing anything wrong or crooked. But the thing is, is that the Premier’s got a mandate from actually 700,000 Albertans in the last year that want to vote on Alberta independence, because Mr. (Thomas) Lukasuk’s petition also gathered somewhere in a neighborhood of 300,000-400,000 signatures. So, there’s 700,000 Albertans that want to vote, and the premier is big on, let’s have a conversation, and let’s have a vote on it. Direct Democracy is something that she champions. She’s got a very clear mandate here to have a vote, no matter what the court says.

Is there anything that this current Liberal government could do that would cause you to stop this movement?

SYLVESTRE: Actually, I think not. I was asked this question at last year’s UCPA GM and I said, an audit with teeth. If we could put the criminals in jail, even the ones in government, I think that would go a long ways. And the other thing they could do is give us the same deal as Quebec has. So, if they would give us the same deal as Quebec and put crooked politicians that are stealing money from us in the wide open now in jail for doing what they’re doing, I think that would be it.

When you say same deal as Quebec, are you talking about equalization payments?

SYLVESTRE: Yeah, or none. And all the benefits that they have that we don’t have. And you know what? Why does Quebec get special treatment? They’re not a have-not province.

Would a change in government do anything for your movement if the Conservatives were to get in – let’s say a snap election happens a month from now, the Conservatives are in.

SYLVESTRE: At this point, as far as Alberta is concerned, the CPC would not stop transfer payments to Quebec because they couldn’t, because if they did, they would lose their base. And not only that, if you actually look at the map and see how much the Maritimes are getting out of that situation, you can see that’s something that would never happen. They would have to literally restructure the country. So that’s fair, and I think that would that would go a long ways to doing it. But the Constitution’s never been opened. Our premier’s got nine questions on there on that ballot that she plans to run. None of you know the Constitution has never been opened, hey tried twice – Charlottetown and Meech Lake. Open the Constitution! Let’s have a conversation. But they will never open the Constitution because they’ve got a golden goose here that’s delivering money one-way to them, annually, and they’re absolutely used to that and don’t want to change that, and it’s our job to make sure that they do.

Are you worried about the fraction that this causes in the province of Alberta?

SYLVESTRE: No, the biggest fraction caused in the province of Alberta happened at COVID. I mean, that was all on Kenney, that was all on Trudeau. That was when the big fracture happened, and that was what woke everybody up. So at that point, that was already something that we didn’t do. This is not going away. This is something that’s going to be here for a long time until this gets rectified. I believe we can win this vote, and that’s going to cause some big problems, but I know that we’re well over 40 per cent support, no matter what the polls say. So even at that, they have to realize that this is a big problem. And you know what? I think it’s possible for western Canada to get a better deal. If you take and you put a pin in London, England, and go through Europe, and by the time you get to Edmonton, you would have crossed nine countries. What’s happening here is that we’re way too far. We’re not them. We’re not like them. We don’t think like them. We never elected a Liberal government. We never will. The Liberals are ruling this country, they don’t think like us. We need separation from those people. We need independence from that and especially the fact that they’re not willing to work with us on anything. So they’re treating us like serfs. And I don’t think Albertans appreciate it.