Calgary lawyer Jeffrey Rath appeared on American media Fox News on Thursday to discuss his leadership in bringing a delegation to Washington to discuss the future of Alberta.
As the Western Standard reported this week, Rath, along with representatives of the Alberta Prosperity Project and people who are feeling disenfranchised as Ottawa politicians govern them from their ivory tower, plans to petition American officials for their support in either Alberta sovereignty or making the province the 51st state.
Rath told Fox “hundreds of Albertans are reaching out and volunteering to join our delegation.”
“Right now our group is very small, it’s a steering committee of people that are looking to come to Washington on an exploratory basis and meet with representatives appointed by President Trump to explore the benefits of either Alberta becoming an independent sovereign nation with economic union with the United States, becoming a US territory or pursuing full statehood,” said Rath.
When asked, “how has Canada lost their way that makes you think you’ve got to join us?”, Rath replied, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Liberal leadership candidate (and likely the next prime minister) Mark Carney “are all wringing their hands over the tariffs — they’re going to be kicking Albertans in the teeth and bringing in a 21% carbon tax increase in April.”
“The carbon tax itself is just an increase to hard-working Albertans who can’t afford to heat their homes and fill their trucks to go to work,” said Rath.
“That’s a big part of why it is that people in Alberta are fed up with being governed by idiotic politicians from Quebec and Ontario that do not understand our province.”
“Culturally we’re far more closely affiliated with our friends to the south in Montana, than we are with all the people in Ottawa wringing their hands over the smell of diesel exhaust when people from Alberta come to protest how bad we’re treated by people in Ottawa.”
Rath was referring to the 2022 Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, where people travelled to Parliament Hill from all across Canada to protest COVID-19 mandates.
Trudeau and his Liberals refused to talk to anyone who attended the protest and instead called the Emergencies Act, sent military police to clear the blockade and froze the bank accounts of both participants and donors.
A federal judge in January 2024 ruled Trudeau’s invocation of the historic War Measures Act was “unnecessary” and “unlawful.”
Rather than accept the judge’s ruling, Trudeau and his Liberals scampered to submit an appeal within minutes of the decision being passed down.
It is now before a panel of three judges at the Court of Appeal, with a decision not expected for about eight months.
