Alberta Prosperity Project, Didsbury Town Hall, Jan. 7, 2026
FORT MCMURRAY — Albertans will vote Oct. 19 on whether the province should begin the legal process required to hold a binding referendum on separation from Canada.
One of the groups arguing in favour of separation is the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), which describes itself as a non-partisan, non-profit educational initiative working to build support for Alberta sovereignty.
Earlier this year, APP leader Mitch Sylvester made remarks about who could become a citizen of an independent Alberta that are not addressed in the group’s published constitutional material. On Jan. 7, 2026, at a sovereignty town hall in Didsbury, Sylvestre spoke about who would be eligible for citizenship in a sovereign Alberta. The event is publicly available on YouTube.
“And I also know that it was discussed at length that if you’re going to become an Alberta citizen after two or three years after this independence movement is successful, you will have to be born here,” Sylvester said.
APP’s document on what an independent Alberta government could look like says independence would require a new constitution that would become the supreme law of Alberta and determine how government power is structured, limited and exercised.
However, it does not say who would automatically become an Alberta citizen, how citizenship would be obtained, whether residents could retain Canadian citizenship or how immigration would operate.
That has left some Albertans unsure how to interpret Sylvester’s remarks.
Jeff Cromwell, a Fort McMurray resident for nearly two decades, says the statement leaves open very different possibilities for people who were not born in Alberta.
“When I hear that, I’m not sure if he’s saying people born outside of Alberta have only two years to get their affairs in order, or if he means we’re going to not allow people to immigrate to Alberta after two years, and Alberta citizenship will only be for people born here,” Cromwell said.
That ambiguity has implications for the Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo region. The 2025 Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo census underscores how mobile the region’s population is.
Among residents who had relocated to the municipality, 51.47 per cent came from somewhere else in Alberta, while 48.53 per cent came from outside the province. Ontario accounted for 13.36 per cent, Newfoundland and Labrador 10.27 per cent and British Columbia 9.63 per cent, with newcomers also arriving from every other province and territory.
Sylvester’s wording leaves unresolved whether he was referring to a transitional period in which people not born in Alberta could qualify for citizenship, or to a future system in which eligibility would eventually be restricted to those born in the province.
Over the past several weeks, Harvard Media has made repeated attempts to clarify Sylvester’s remarks through phone calls, emails and messages.
Those requests have gone unanswered. Staff members also ended two telephone calls before Harvard Media was able to obtain clarification.
Without a response from Sylvester, the scope and intended meaning of the proposed citizenship requirement remain unclear.
The Oct. 19 referendum question asks:
APP says its vision is for Alberta to become a sovereign jurisdiction governed under a constitution written by and for Albertans.
That broad public framing contrasts with remarks Sylvester has made at several town halls, including the Didsbury event, where he has discussed more specific conditions surrounding citizenship and other foundational policies that do not appear in the group’s published constitutional material.
The group also advocates for measures intended to increase Alberta’s self-reliance and negotiating power, including an Alberta Pension Plan, an Alberta police force to replace the RCMP and greater provincial authority over natural resource development, taxation, immigration and employment insurance.
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