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Following social media posts last night by two prominent figures in the Alberta separation movement, the board of the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) terminated Mitch Sylvestre as CEO and Jeffrey Rath as the group’s legal counsel last month.
However, Sylvestre, speaking last night at an online video meeting of APP supporters to discuss the next steps for their separation movement and how supporters will attend the United Conservative Party (UCP) annual general meeting next month dismissed the claims as completely false. Rath was not at the meeting.
The comments on social media were posted in public. AlbertaPolitics.ca was sent a transcript and recording of the meeting Sylvestre attended, first reported on social media by journalist and researcher Trevor Scott Howell.
A note on X published at 17:27 by Chris Scott, owner of the Whistlestop Café in the Mirror, which became a center of opposition to COVID vaccines during the pandemic, showed an image that said: “Notice of Board Decisions” under labels reading “Alberta Prosperity Project,” “formal public notice,” and “by the Board. The image was produced in the same style as the APP website.
The picture says that Mr. Sylvestre, who is still president of UCP Bonnyville–Cold lake–St. Paul Constituency Association, and Mr. Rath, a well-known attorney who serves as APP counsel, were “dismissed for cause” on September 14, and removed as directors at a separate meeting on September 24. “Neither Jeffrey Rath nor Mitch Sylvestre has authority to act or represent the Alberta Society Prosperity Project (Alberta Prosperity Project).
“I sincerely hoped this matter could be resolved privately,” Scott said in a post accompanying the image. “In the interest of protecting the integrity and unity of Alberta’s independence and sovereignty movements, every effort has been made to reach a resolution behind closed doors. It is therefore with deep disappointment and doubt that I find it necessary to issue this public notice to members of the Alberta Prosperity Project.”
A post with the same image published about 20 minutes earlier by Tanya Clemens on her FarmGeek account on X said “I am an APP board member and wanted people to know that these changes were made by our board. Please read the notice.”
“We made the decision to wait until after the referendum to share this,” she said in part in another post on X. “We had all worked so hard to get to this point, and the last thing we wanted was to create a distraction when everyone needed to focus on winning the vote.”
In 2023, Clemens was an unsuccessful candidate for the UCP in the Livingstone-Macleod riding. In the past year, she became known as a supporter of the APP.
At the APP’s Way Forward meeting, according to the transcript, Sylvestre said, “Chris and Tanya have never been on the APS board. Okay? So just understand this: the fact that they say they fired someone from the APS board, they had no authority to do it. They can’t do it, and I’m really concerned about the timing of that.”
“This is all internal stuff,” he continued. “I said I would never, you know, have a fight in public about any of our internal stuff, and I’m going to hold that line. I’m not going to deparate anybody, and I won’t do that, because I believe that’s the whole point here.”
“It’s literally going to make us all look like we’re freaking crazy,” Sylvestre adds in the recording. “You know, we’re fighting right after a big success. What I thought was a big success. So as a consequence of that, you know what? I’m just going ahead.”
The UCP AGM is scheduled to take place at the BMO Center in Calgary from November 27 to 29.
Meanwhile, last night’s Elections Alberta still counted the last 1 percent of ballots cast in Monday’s secession referendum.
The post Conflicting claims over status of separatist leaders with Alberta Prosperity Project swirl on social media appeared first on rabble.ca.
