The Alberta Prosperity Project's board says it fired its CEO and lawyer on Sept. 14, but both kept speaking for the separatist group through referendum night. Rath calls the board meetings 'imaginary.'
The board's "Notice of Board Decisions" was posted to X at 5:07 p.m. Thursday by APP board member Tanya Clemens. It says the board terminated Rath and Sylvestre "for cause" on Sept. 14, 2026, and removed both men as directors at a subsequent meeting on Sept. 24.
The notice states that neither man "has authority to act for or represent the Alberta Prosperity Project (Alberta Prosperity Society)."
The notice does not say what the cause was. It says the board first tried to settle the matter privately and "in good faith," and is going public because those efforts "have not resulted in compliance."
In a follow-up post, Clemens said the board deliberately sat on the news until the vote was over.
"We made the decision to wait until after the referendum to share this," she wrote, adding the board did not want "to create a distraction when everyone needed to be focused on winning the vote."
Clemens pointed followers to a recent video by Chris Scott — a former APP CEO who fronts Let's Talk Alberta and says he now sits on the APP board — saying he explains the situation "really well."
Rath fired back on X about an hour after the notice appeared. In a 6:13 p.m. post headed "OFFICIAL APP NOTICE" and signed "General Counsel, Alberta Prosperity Society," he wrote: "Neither Tanya Clemens or Chris Scott were lawfully registered as board members at the time these imaginary board meetings were held." He reposted it minutes later with a siren emoji.
When another X user asked whether Clemens and Scott could announce decisions on APP's behalf, Rath replied: "No - but they did it anyway. Mitch will also responded in due course. They aren't APP."
Scott, who says he sits on the APP board, answered Rath directly. He wrote that the board had terminated Rath as general counsel for cause and removed him as a director, and that Rath has "no authority to issue notices on behalf of the Society, and this one carries no weight."
Scott argued that a Corporate Registry filing records who a society's directors are but does not decide who they are — directors are elected under the bylaws, he said, and he and Clemens were. He added that Rath "approved the November 2025 minutes yourself."
Scott also said the society's secretary tried to file updates with the registry but could not, because Sylvestre never signed off on the audited financial report or submitted it, and that Rath, as general counsel, "never made sure the Society's filings were in order." He closed by saying Rath had an opportunity to speak to the matter and chose not to.
The dispute means two rival camps now each claim to speak for the APP: a board that says it fired its CEO and legal counsel, and two founders who say that board was never lawfully constituted.
Scott laid out the board's side in a 46-minute Facebook Live on his Whistle Stop Cafe page Thursday morning, hours before the notice was posted.
He said the board of the Alberta Prosperity Society — the non-profit that oversees the APP — "met in accordance with the bylaws, with notice to all directors" on Sept. 14.
"On September 14th, we removed Mitch Sylvestre as the CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project, and we terminated Jeffrey Rath as legal counsel for the Alberta Prosperity Society," Scott said. "Both were given notice, both were given means to appeal according to the bylaws, and they refused."
At a second meeting on Sept. 24, according to the board's notice, "we removed both Jeff and Mitch as directors of the Alberta Prosperity Society," Scott said.
Chris Scott on the board removing Sylvestre and Rath. Source: The Whistle Stop Cafe, Facebook Live, Oct. 22, 2026.
Scott said the rift began in January, when he raised replacing Sylvestre as CEO while Sylvestre ran the Stay Free Alberta petition. "If you want to know who was identifying the necessity of having a new CEO at the Alberta Prosperity Project? It was me," he said. He said a well-known political figure was prepared to lead the group but "wouldn't have anything to do with APP if Mitch Sylvestre was involved and Jeff Rath."
He was also critical of Rath's public conduct. "I have a ton of respect for Jeff, but I think he's been wrong a lot," Scott said, adding that comments about Alberta becoming a 51st state "should have never been made" and were made "outside of the direction and purview of the rest of the APS board."
'You've never been directors.' Scott said that when the board pressed for a referendum campaign plan, Sylvestre and Rath challenged its standing. "Mitch told me and others on the board, and Jeff told us that we were never on the board because Mitch had failed to sign off on the audited financials and submit them to registries in Alberta," he said.
"Directors are appointed or removed according to the bylaws of the Alberta Prosperity Society," Scott said. The registry "doesn't change who the directors are." But Sylvestre and Rath, he said, told them: "You've never been directors. You have no say."
"They locked us out of everything, all the intellectual property, our emails, finances, everything," Scott said.
Chris Scott on the registry dispute. Source: The Whistle Stop Cafe, Facebook Live, Oct. 22, 2026.
'Nothing happened.' Scott said the APP "raised something like $700,000," then went quiet after the petition drive ended. "I watched in horror, absolute horror, for five weeks as nothing happened," he said. "There was no advertising campaign. There were no town halls. There was no print material, no flyer drops, no nothing."
"The ball was dropped in such a way that it probably lost this referendum," he said.
Chris Scott on the referendum campaign. Source: The Whistle Stop Cafe, Facebook Live, Oct. 22, 2026.
'A political weapon.' Scott said the group's real problem was that "a small group of people started using a giant members list and fundraising as a political weapon against Danielle Smith." Instead of talking it through, he said, a "plan to remove the problem was concocted," and he quoted Sylvestre: "I was tired of trouble with the board. I saw an opportunity to get rid of you, and I took it."
Scott also alleged that Sylvestre told one of Scott's friends, "There's director's insurance. I will spend all the money and burn APP down." And he said that when he suggested in January that Sylvestre step aside for an interim CEO, Sylvestre replied: "If you guys try and take me out, I will take all my people and I will burn it down."
"Does that sound like someone who wants unity to you?" Scott asked.
Chris Scott’s allegations about Sylvestre. Source: The Whistle Stop Cafe, Facebook Live, Oct. 22, 2026.
'Political operatives.' Scott also made allegations about the people he says Sylvestre brought in to run the referendum campaign after the board was sidelined. He alleged that Sylvestre "hired some people to come in and work on that campaign that you're not going to like. Political operatives."
Scott named Jenny Walker. Referring to Rath's recent claim that Walker sold the Wexit members list to Premier Danielle Smith's leadership campaign, Scott said: "I don't know if that's true or not. You'll have to ask Jenny. What I can tell you is that Jenny tried to sell the Wexit list to APP, and Jeff knew that. Mitch knew that. We turned them down, but she made the offer."
He alleged that Sylvestre then hired Walker "along with two people who are in court now for mishandling a members list," and a man Scott identified as Apollo Chung, whom he accused of having said: "I don't give a s--- about the cause or the people. Conservatives are so effing dumb. I just want the money. I just want the list."
Scott alleged that APP's members list — "that members list that includes your name and my name" — "was given to those people," while the volunteers who built it were "locked out of NationBuilder, locked out of the website." He said those decisions "were made without the authority of the APS board," and alleged that "all of the spending that was done since January 26 has been outside of board authority."
Scott said "pretty nasty recordings" backing up his account are "coming very soon."
None of Scott's allegations have been proven, and the Palliser Post has not independently verified them.
Scott said the money members donated was meant for education on independence, and he "will refuse to allow" it "to be turned into a political weapon to achieve a political outcome for a small group of people."
He also broke with the push to take over the UCP. "I do not believe that this plan to try and take over the UCP and create a separatist party after we had only 25% of Albertans even vote to have the conversation about Alberta independence … will bear fruit at all," he said. "I believe it'll be a disaster."
If the board's timeline is accurate, Rath and Sylvestre spent the final five weeks of the referendum campaign — including all of advance polling — presenting themselves as APP's leaders without the board's authority. In several cases, they did so through the APP's own official channels.
A timeline of public activity after the Sept. 14 firing:
The board's notice — and Clemens' explanation for its timing — leaves several questions unanswered: who controlled APP's X account and member text list after Sept. 14; whether the board approved any of the statements issued in the group's name; and why APP members and the voting public were not told that the men speaking for the organization had, according to its own board, no authority to do so.
Allowing removed leaders to keep speaking in an organization's name — and staying silent so as not to disrupt a campaign — means members and voters were acting on statements the board now says were unauthorized. That includes the instruction to leave nine ballot questions blank.
Clemens is no outside observer. She describes herself as an APP board member, co-led the separate Let Alberta Decide independence campaign with lawyer Keith Wilson, and sits on the board of the Highwood UCP constituency association, the riding that covers Premier Danielle Smith's hometown.
On Sept. 17 — three days after the APP board says it fired Rath and Sylvestre — the Highwood board became the first UCP constituency association to pass a motion calling for a special general meeting (SGM) and a review of Smith's leadership. Clemens publicly defended her vote for the review in a video, saying Smith should have stayed neutral during the referendum rather than taking an adversarial stance toward independence, according to CBC News. The Western Standard reported she framed the vote as accountability to party members rather than a call for Smith's removal.
Forcing an SGM had been a central public goal of Rath and Sylvestre for months.
What the UCP's rules say. The party's bylaws and governance manual do not expressly bar a constituency association director from also sitting on the board of an outside advocacy group. But they do set duties that apply directly to her role:
Whether sitting on the board of a group campaigning to oust the party leader — while voting on a motion to do exactly that — is a "material conflict" is a question for the party. Under the Code, a member can report a suspected breach to the party's executive director, who can refer it to the UCP Arbitration Committee. Penalties range from a reprimand to revocation of membership.
It is not known whether Clemens disclosed her APP board role to the Highwood board before the vote.
Sylvestre — who has been identified in multiple reports as a UCP constituency association president, and is therefore bound by the same Code of Conduct — used the APP name in the final week of the campaign to tell supporters to leave Questions 1 through 9 blank.
Several of those questions tracked policy UCP members themselves adopted. At the party's 2025 annual general meeting in Edmonton, members approved all but one of 36 policy resolutions on Nov. 29, 2025. They included Resolution 4, which called for temporary residents, visitors, undocumented people and failed asylum claimants to pay out of pocket for provincially funded health care and social benefits — the same idea behind the referendum question on limiting provincially funded programs to citizens, permanent residents and people with Alberta-approved immigration status. The party's Member Policy Declaration, approved the same day, distinguishes citizens, permanent residents and recognized refugees from temporary residents and visitors.
The APP's Oct. 15 statement insisted it had not told anyone to vote No. Instead, the stated goal was to deny the government a mandate: if the nine passed, the text warned, "Edmonton and Ottawa will point to them as proof Albertans want to fix Canada and stay."
Smith had asked Albertans to vote Yes on the nine to strengthen her hand with Ottawa. Most of the nine passed narrowly in unofficial results, while roughly three-quarters of voters chose to remain in Canada on Question 10.
Rath and Sylvestre's push to force an SGM on Smith's leadership predates the board's decision — and continued after it.
Since referendum night alone, Rath has publicly called for an SGM in at least four separate media appearances. As of the last public count, at least three constituency associations had passed review motions — well short of the 22 required. The UCP's annual meeting is Nov. 27–29 in Calgary.
Jeffrey Rath faces a claim from Delaware-based litigation funder Diriba Investments, which alleges in court documents that Rath and his firm, RathPC, defaulted on a 2018 financing agreement and now owe about $108.8 million plus interest, Global News reported. The claim has not been adjudicated; Rath denies breaching the agreement and has called the $109-million figure "ridiculous," according to the Western Standard. Separately, the Tallcree First Nation obtained a court order freezing up to $8.5 million of Rath's and his firm's assets in a dispute over settlement trust money, and a court-appointed receiver says his firm moved $11.5 million from a Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation trust to help cover a court-ordered refund to Tallcree. Rath denies wrongdoing. In November 2025, a Law Society of Alberta panel reprimanded him and ordered $800 in costs after he conceded he took steps in a case that were clearly without merit, The Tyee reported.
Dennis Modry, an APP co-founder and former CEO, was found by a B.C. Supreme Court judge in March 2025 to have breached his fiduciary duties and misappropriated $1,283,441.31 from the accounts of his elderly aunt and uncle while acting under their powers of attorney (Holmes v. Modry, 2025 BCSC 430). The couple suffered from dementia and Alzheimer's. In March 2026, the family told CBC News he had not repaid any of the money; Modry said he had asked his lawyer to negotiate a smaller settlement. Sylvestre has since said Modry left the organization.
Mitch Sylvestre has a record of incendiary remarks. Political writer Dave Cournoyer reported in 2025 that Sylvestre was criticized at a Sherwood Park meeting for comparing Alberta's political climate to Nazi Germany. In an Oct. 2026 UnHerd feature, the writer reported Sylvestre had told a reporter he believes King Charles wants him murdered. Maclean's reported that at an APP town hall in Didsbury this January, Sylvestre told the crowd "old-stock white Canadians" had no need to apologize for the room being filled with white people. And in a 2025 video posted by the APP, he warned that Communism "always comes in on a promise and leaves with a bullet."
Smith has told separatists in the UCP to accept the referendum result or find another party. Sylvestre has said he is not leaving. With the board now publicly disowning its two best-known figures, it is unclear who, if anyone, will speak for the APP as the separatist wing turns its attention to the party's November convention.