RAISING THE ROOF: Independence leader Rath gets standing ovation at the UCP AGM as he challenges Smith

Jeffrey Rath of the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) tore the roof off the house at the UCP AGM in Edmonton on Friday night.As he took the mic during the bear pit session with Premier Danielle Smith and her cabinet, he said, “After that so-called MOU was signed yesterday, the ink wasn't dry on the paper, and Mark Carney went out and gleefully announced a 600% increase in the industrial carbon tax in Alberta. How many of us favour a free and independent Alberta?”.The statement was met with thunderous applause and a standing ovation from the vast majority of the roughly 4,000 attendees.Smith responded by saying she supported an “independent Alberta within a united Canada,” which was overwhelmingly met with boos from the crowd.Smith clarified the province’s carbon tax framework and emphasized that Alberta has maintained an industrial carbon tax since 2007, which is levied and collected provincially rather than federally.“Right now, the way the law is written, it will go up to $170 by 2030,” Smith said.“We all agree that that is too high. So that is the discussion that we're going to have.”Smith went on to highlight recent victories for Alberta’s energy sector, emphasizing the removal of an emissions cap on industrial production and the elimination of federal clean electricity regulations that could have shut down natural gas by 2035.“I've got some work to do to make sure that we can get a pipeline to the northwest BC coast,” Smith reiterated.“A few months ago, everyone would have said, 'That is a Liberal pipe dream. Why would you even bother?'” she said.“What we agreed to yesterday is we will go through the process, we'll put in the major projects, and if we do our work right, I am confident that we are going to get a million barrels per day going to the Asian markets, and we're going to be able to expand our markets.“I would just ask for a little bit of a leap of faith.”.Alberta UCP members to vote on controversial policies at AGM .Rath told the Western Standard after the exchange that he thought Smith "needed to hear" the reception that his remarks received but didn't think it would change her stance going on the independence debate going forward. Mitch Sylvestre, CEO of the APP, said that Rath’s statement got “75% of the room.”“I've been saying it on the news for the last two weeks now. Independence is alive and well. This is not going away,” he said.When asked about the memorandum of understanding between Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney on energy, he said that the federal government has never treated Alberta with real respect, and he was surprised they didn’t try harder to keep the province engaged.“I thought the federal government would actually try to keep us here,” he said, noting that in his opinion, “they haven't done a thing to make us want to stay.”He was especially critical of the federal carbon tax, describing it as a massive burden on Albertans without clear benefits.“How does adding a tax burden of $1,000 that covers absolutely nothing make Alberta better?” Sylvestre asked.“There's no proponent investing it. There's no way to measure it. It's just a $20–50 billion boondoggle. And then increasing the carbon tax on top of a 44% tax burden on every single Albertan right now… it doesn't help.“It makes our producers and our farmers less competitive. It makes our outback less competitive. And it makes our people poorer. All three of those things are negative.”

RAISING THE ROOF: Independence leader Rath gets standing ovation at the UCP AGM as he challenges Smith

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