On May 4, the organizers of the Alberta Independence Movement announced they had accrued a massive number of signatures, well in excess of the required number to submit their petition to trigger an independence referendum.
They needed 177,732.
Interesting pro-separation numbers from the aboriginals.
The head of Canada’s intelligence agency says Alberta’s potential secession vote is susceptible to disinformation and foreign interference from players like Russia.
In an interview with CBC’s The House, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) director Dan Rogers said it’s his agency’s job to “understand and investigate” foreign interference.
“And a referendum like the one in Alberta, that may have a divisive effect on society, is rife for amplification or for the sort of disinformation or foreign interference that we’ve seen from players like Russia in the past,” he told host Catherine Cullen.
I get the impression this guy will say anything Carney wants.
OTTAWA – Standing in his office Friday morning, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canadians in her province, and industry stakeholders, are “getting a bit impatient” when it comes to plans to get major projects moving.
Speaking about the memorandum of understanding (MOU) – the energy co-operation pact outlining conditions for a new oil pipeline connecting Alberta to the Pacific Coast to proceed – Smith said the two parties have “had some really constructive conversations.”
But now, she has told Carney that “if we’re going to move forward with that MOU, I hope it happens in the next number of days.”
But there is hope allegedly …
Ottawa suggests letting cabinet green-light pipelines before technical assessments happen
The federal government is proposing reversing the order of pipeline approvals, allowing cabinet to green-light a new project prior to the completion of technical assessments and approvals.
The proposed changes come less than two months before Alberta is expected to submit a proposal for a new pipeline to the west coast.
The idea of switching the order of the approval process by giving it first to cabinet and then to the civil service for a technical review is included in a sweeping set of proposals released by Ottawa on Friday.
The RCMP has informed the Alberta government that there is no evidence the province’s separatist movement has been subject to foreign interference, according to the minister who oversees policing.
Mike Ellis, Alberta’s Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Services, on Wednesday attributed this information to the RCMP’s deputy commissioner, noting the update landed before the government learned about an alleged privacy breach involving the personal information of 2.9 million Albertans.
EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Alberta separatists said Monday they have formally submitted almost 302,000 signatures to try to trigger a referendum on the province leaving Canada.
The group needed 178,000 signatures to force the province to consider such a vote.
The question of separation could go on a provincewide ballot as early as October, as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said she would move forward if enough names are gathered and verified. Smith has said she personally does not support the oil-rich province leaving Canada.
h/t patthedog
If Alberta could vote in U.S. elections, President Donald Trump would have won in a landslide there all three times he ran for the White House. Alberta is one of Canada’s 10 provinces and the closest thing the country has to a red state.
People based in the Netherlands are behind several YouTube channels that promote Alberta separatism but are fronted by hired actors, according to an investigation by CBC News’s visual investigations team and Radio-Canada’s Décrypteurs.
CBC News identified three individuals in the Netherlands whose digital trail links them to accounts that hired actors to appear on the YouTube channels. Two of them attended the same online course that teaches customers how to create “faceless” YouTube channels that generate passive income for the creators, who remain in the shadows.
The mispronunciation of Regina — as in, the capital of Saskatchewan — was a clue. Then there was the reference to B.C. MLA Dallas Brodie, a woman, as a “he.”
These slip-ups helped lead researchers at the Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO) in Montreal to what they say is a network of affiliated YouTube accounts that appear to belong to concerned Canadians, sympathize with some Albertans’ grievances and push the idea of American annexation.
“The video narrators performed ‘Albertan,’ but there were these moments where you’re like, ‘OK, so this person is not from here,’ ” said Chris Ross, the senior analyst at the Observatory, who led his team’s recent probe into thousands of suspicious YouTube videos.
Who is behind this? Who stands to gain? Russia? China? Liberal Party members? Likely the latter.
AI makes it easy to create a click-bait video the creator(s) may have simply found a rich vein to mine for cash.
Alberta is going to daylight saving time all year round.
Premier Danielle Smith and her UCP government have made the decision. It will go to the Alberta legislature for debate this week.
Makes sense to me.
CALGARY — Premier Danielle Smith has applauded US President Donald Trump’s recent decision to issue several pipeline permits to facilitate cross-border transport of crude oil and petroleum products between the US and Canada, as well as a permit to construct a new pipeline.
Yesterday, the White House approved the advancement of multiple pipeline projects carrying Alberta oil to the United States.
Expanding pipeline capacity to the U.S. is something I’ve been advocating from this U.S. Administration since their last election. It has paid off!
This… pic.twitter.com/3qtbAm6VQ2
— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) April 16, 2026
OTTAWA — A new poll finds that support for Alberta separatism is at its highest level in at least five years, with a fall independence referendum looking increasingly likely.
The poll, taken by Pollara Strategic Insights, shows that 27 per cent of decided voters in Alberta would vote for the province to separate from Canada. This is a seven point increase from December 2025 and a record-high over the five years Pollara has spent tracking support for independence among Albertans.
A First Nation in Alberta has said that a separatist push for the province to secede from Canada is “consummately irresponsible and dishonourable” and should be shut down, arguing in court that a proposed referendum would violate their treaty rights.
A minority of residents of the oil-rich province have long argued that the province’s woes are due to the structure of payments to the federal government and a perceived inability to get their vast fossil fuel reserves to market.
In recent months, separatists have seized on the sentiment and collected nearly 180,000 signatures to request a referendum. But the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, near Edmonton, has asked a court to halt the campaign.
Alberta separatists are making alternative plans to pressure Premier Danielle Smith’s government to call an independence referendum if a judge throws out their current efforts after a multiday hearing next week.
Mitch Sylvestre is organizing an independence petition under Alberta’s Citizen Initiative Act. Mr. Sylvestre’s campaign needs 178,000 signatures to force a constitutional referendum. Earlier this week, Mr. Sylvestre declared organizers had reached that goal, one month ahead of deadline.
In the middle of a trade war and Donald Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st state of the United States, Canadians are watching in astonishment as figures close to the president embrace a minority separatist movement in the province of Alberta. Secret meetings with representatives of the U.S. State Department, the open support of figures from the MAGA movement, and the possibility of a referendum this fall — for which signatures are already being collected — paint a picture in which many see the shadow of foreign interference.
Alberta’s new legislation limiting “ideology” in classrooms is its own type of ideological flag – which is ironic, since one of the changes proposed by Bill 25 is to prohibit, with limited exceptions, the display of all flags other than Canada’s and Alberta’s.
This Bill 25 flag, also known as the “Act to Remove Politics and Ideology from Classrooms and Amend the Education Act, 2026,” is multi-functional. On paper, is it designed to “ensure that classrooms remain neutral”; it also “protect(s) employees from being required to take part in activities that conflict with their personal beliefs” (though their abstention could be perceived as an expression of personal belief, but never mind).
