This story is being published in collaboration with The Tyee, an award-winning independent media outlet based in B.C. 

At a right-wing political conference in Calgary, Bruce Pardy, the executive director for an organization called Rights Probe spoke on a panel about the need to extinguish Indigenous rights as a part of a push to separate Alberta from Canada.  

Pardy joined Grant Abraham, the sole member of a party called the United Party; former Peterborough MP Michelle Ferreri; People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier; and others on a panel at the We Unify conference in Calgary in late September to discuss issues related to Alberta sovereignty.

Pardy said he didn’t want to see a separate Alberta “make itself into a little Canada.”

“In order to really turn the page here to become not just an independent country, but a new and free country, Alberta has to ditch the things that are Canadian that exist in Alberta right now,” Pardy said.

“Let’s just list some. A Westminster system of government. A crown. Single-payer public healthcare system, a managerial state, and Aboriginal rights, you have to get rid of all of these things. And of all those things, perhaps the elephant in the room is Aboriginal rights.”

The reason that getting rid of Indigenous rights is so important, Pardy said, is because in “a free country governed by rule of law, one of the features of that idea is that the same rights and laws apply to everybody.”

The conference was cross-promoted from the Alberta Prosperity Project website, which  directed people to the We Unify conference and promised “an unforgettable experience with the Alberta Prosperity Project!”

We Unify is an annual conference for the political right in Western Canada that has met since 2022. In the past, the conference has hosted or invited speakers like Tamara Lich, a key organizer of the “Freedom Convoy” protests and Artur Pawlowski, a pastor from Alberta who was charged multiple times with violating health orders that prohibited gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Alberta Prosperity Project, or APP, is a group that describes itself as “a not-for-profit, non-partisan educational society, uniting all Albertans, businesses, and organizations to protect their prosperity, interests, freedoms, rights, and self-determination.”

Its website asks visitors if they agree that Alberta should become a sovereign country and cease to be a province of Canada — and that is also the wording the group is pushing for if a referendum on separating is ever held.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is not affiliated with APP, but she has known the former CEO of APP, Dennis Modry, for years and has previously said he was one of the first people she spoke to when she was considering running for premier. While Smith has said she does not support Alberta becoming a separate country, she has described APP as a key ally.

Pardy is the executive director of Rights Probe — and the sole staffer listed with the organization, which warns of “the end of Western Liberal civilization” on its website. Pardy is also a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, a conservative think tank.

White House meets with separatists

Pardy’s comments came days before an announcement by the Alberta Prosperity Project that members of the group had met with senior officials in Donald Trump’s White House regarding Alberta independence.  

“The confidential meeting, requested by U.S. counterparts to maintain diplomatic discretion, focused on economic partnerships, energy security, and the strategic benefits of an independent Alberta Republic,” reads an APP press release.

Modry has said Trump officials discussed lending Alberta $500 million to separate from Canada.

Pardy has further elaborated on his stance in a blog post on the Fraser Institute website where he calls Indigenous rights, “more constitutionally powerful than any Charter right.”

His particular focus seems to be on property rights and the way that recent Supreme Court rulings have affirmed Indigenous land rights, and recent agreements between Canada and British Columbia to affirm that the Council of the Haida Nation has Aboriginal title over the land.

DeSmog reached out to Pardy about his comments and was directed to his Substack newsletter for further reading.

In the post he wrote, “In a free Alberta, Aboriginal rights should not exist. Instead, reserve lands in Alberta should be divided into lots and transferred to individual Indigenous people, creating for them the same property rights and opportunities as everybody else.”

Pardy declined to answer DeSmog’s questions about this perspective, including a question about why Albertans should believe his approach would succeed where assimilation policies of the past have failed. Pardy did however invite this reporter to participate in a live podcast recording to discuss the issues of Indigenous rights and Alberta sovereignty.

Pardy’s hardline views on Indigenous rights differ from other supporters of the Alberta separatist movement.

Jeffery Rath, an Alberta-based lawyer who is a co-founder of the Alberta Prosperity Project, took Pardy to task for his views on a podcast called the Shaun Newman Podcast.

Rath said that Pardy’s ideas on Indigenous law “fly in the face of 150 years of history and the very foundation of our country.”