Relatives of a prominent Alberta separatist who recently met with U.S. officials are upset that he has failed to pay back more than $1.3 million that a judge found he misappropriated from elderly relatives.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled in March 2025 that Dennis Modry, co-founder and former CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project, misappropriated the money from the joint bank account of his aunt and uncle who suffered from Alzheimer’s and dementia, respectively, and ordered him to pay the money back with interest.
Verna Holmes, who filed the civil suit against Modry, told CBC News he has not paid back any money, despite the court order.
“You go through all of that and then for what? He still gets away with it,” Holmes said.
“He took advantage of vulnerable people, and he was in a position himself to know what he was doing.”
Modry, who lives in Edmonton and currently serves as chair of the Alberta Prosperity Project’s board of directors, told CBC News he found the court ruling surprising and disappointing.
He said he has asked his lawyer to negotiate a settlement for a much smaller amount.
“I’d like to work out a settlement, just out of frustration, just for this to go away. But there’s no way I’m going to agree to a settlement of the magnitude that they’re referring to,” he said.
According to court documents from October 2025, no appeal has been filed and the window to appeal has expired.
Lori Williams, an associate professor of political science at Mount Royal University in Calgary, called the details in the court order “deeply disturbing” for such a high-profile figure in Alberta.
She said it raises “serious questions about his character, about his credibility and about the credibility of anything that he’s associated with.”
Modry called her assessment a “typical slam comment.”
In 2014, according to the court decision, Modry was given power of attorney for his uncle Fred Bodnar and Bodnar’s wife, Laurette, who have both since died. Holmes is Laurette’s niece.
The order details how he took large sums out of their accounts — including savings and mutual funds, as well as the proceeds from the sale of their car and Parksville, B.C., house — writing cheques to himself.
He said he invested most of the money into a high-end condo project he was developing in Edmonton called Privada Private Residences, which was later foreclosed on.
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Among other expenditures, the document says Modry also rented a condo in Scottsdale, Ariz., for six months, bought 24 bottles of wine and lost $9,000 that he invested in cryptocurrency.
The judge determined Modry violated his obligations under the power of attorney by withdrawing the couple’s money without adequate documentation or proper consent, between 2014 and 2019.
Fred Bodnar was suffering from dementia and Laurette from Alzheimer’s in their later years when Modry was handling their accounts, according to the court order.
Modry argued he was investing the money in the best interests of the couple, and said Fred was of sound mind when he approved his investments in Privada. Based on evidence from medical professionals and others, the judge disagreed.
“I find that any investment of Fred and Laurette’s funds in the Privada project or otherwise for the respondent’s personal benefit, does not satisfy the standard of a prudent investor,” Justice Judith Hoffman wrote.
Modry told CBC News he should have kept better records of his transactions, but maintains that Fred supported his investments. He declined to answer questions about specific expenses.
Holmes, who lives in B.C., said the case has been “a very exhausting and upsetting ordeal to have to go through.”
Modry co-founded the Alberta Prosperity Project in 2022, a group pushing for Alberta to leave Canada and become independent.
He travelled to Washington at least three times in 2025, along with the group’s CEO Mitch Sylvestre and chair Jeff Rath, to discuss Alberta separation with Trump administration officials — trips that B.C. Premier David Eby called acts of “treason.”
In a recent interview with NBC News, Modry said, “It’s heartening to us at each of the three meetings that we’ve had with the U.S. administration to be informed that the entire U.S. administration is supportive of Alberta becoming a sovereign country.”
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Modry has worked with Alberta’s conservative governments for decades, and in the 2000s emerged as an advocate for health-care privatization.
A former heart surgeon, Modry in 2015 found himself in a legal fight with Alberta Health Services over his ability to conduct surgery and get along with other medical staff. The courts ultimately upheld AHS’s suspension of Modry’s surgical privileges, and he discontinued his leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The following year, he publicly proposed the Privada development.
Before the Alberta Prosperity Project, Modry was also in the news in 2020 as a critic of COVID-19 restrictions.
The Alberta Prosperity Project did not respond to CBC News’s requests for comment.
At a 2022 event co-hosted by right-leaning media outlet Rebel News, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that when she decided to run, “I knew how important it was to address the issues of autonomy and I talked to Dr. Modry as one of my first steps.”
Asked by Rebel founder Ezra Levant if she was willing to tell the federal government, “We want these things or else,” on issues of Albertan autonomy, Smith replied, “The ‘or else’ is Dennis Modry and the Alberta Prosperity Project.”
The Alberta Prosperity Project began collecting signatures for its separation referendum petition in January of this year. At a public signing event that month, the Tyee reported that Modry said Smith told him she’d like to stay on as Alberta’s leader if the province separates from Canada.
Smith’s press secretary, Sam Blackett, did not answer specific questions from CBC News about whether the premier made that comment or is in regular contact with Modry.
“Dr. Dennis Modry does not speak on behalf of the premier nor does he serve in any role as an advisor to the premier,” Blackett said in an email.
“The premier has been very clear — she supports a strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.”
