Some of the responses to my most recent column were interpreted as support for independence, and indeed that is the position of the Western Standard. But my view is more than wordsmithing — independence, if necessary, but not necessarily independence.
A referendum is certainly in our future, and current support will surprise many in Central Canada. My view is that the breakup of Canada would be a colossal failure of all parties and entirely unnecessary. But sadly, it appears inevitable.
In any discussion of Western independence, the inclusion of Saskatchewan is imperative. Over a range of issues regarding independence, it polls almost identically to Alberta. Further, not only does it add half of Canada’s current conventional oil production, world-leading reserves and production of potash and uranium, more than half of Canada’s arable land and an array of minerals, but Saskatchewan also prevents detractors from isolating Alberta.
Westerners saw it coming but Canada was shocked when support for provincial independence exploded, after Eastern Canada chose to reward the Liberals with a larger government in the general election.
At first, federalists dismissed the provincial sovereignty movement as a fringe minority of loud cranks. They were confident it was little more than a collection of vocal malcontents on social media and there was little of substance to the movement.
If Prime Minister Mark Carney doesn’t listen to the West, it’s going to cost Canada.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe are demanding that Ottawa stop stomping on their provinces’ natural resource production.
Smith is telling Carney to scrap the “no more pipelines” law, Bill C-69, lift the cap on Alberta’s energy and cancel the looming ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles.
By any measure of common sense — and I emphasize common, not the boutique intellectualism of think tanks or the jargon-fed corridors of Ottawa — Alberta stands today at the most consequential fork in its history.
One road loops endlessly through subservience and stasis; the other leads toward dignity, prosperity, and self-determination. The real question echoing across the Prairies is not “Why would Alberta leave?” but “Why on earth would it stay?”
In this much, Mark Carney is different from his predecessor. He thinks Canada is a country with a defining identity.
Regardless of what so many Albertans may feel about independence for Alberta or Saskatchewan today, Justin Trudeau’s cringeworthy New York Times interview ten years ago left us, well… cringing. Canada, he said, was the world’s “first post-national state,” and seemed pleased with the thought. He added for good measure, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.”
All of Canada is waiting to see which of the Mark Carneys that we saw in the recent election campaign emerges as the new prime minister. The two choices are the long-standing climate-change advocate who was apparently the inspirer-in-chief of the Justin Trudeau government, and who persuaded that regime to bind itself with non-biodegradable hoops to the notion that climate was the greatest problem facing Canada. This, of course, is nonsense. Canada’s greatest problems are economic competitiveness and a declining comparative standard of living with steady net capital outflows, as well as the disintegration of the Confederation and the official self-degradation of the country.
For Canadians, there’s nothing new about a province contemplating secession. Two referendums on Quebec’s potential independence – in 1980 and 1995 – brought the country uncomfortably close to the precipice. Today, it’s not Quebec but the oil-rich western province of Alberta that is chafing under the constraints of Canadian confederation. US president Donald Trump’s tariffs and comments about turning Canada into the 51st state have set in motion a chain of political events that will probably result in a referendum on Albertan independence sometime in 2026.
Inside a hotel event hall in the centre of the province, 12 Alberta flags hung around the large room. But nowhere to be found was the red and white maple leaf.
Around 400 people had gathered at the Red Deer Resort and Casino Conference Centre for a town hall hosted by the newly re-named Republican Party of Alberta to promote the province’s growing independence movement.
Is Alberta truly strong and free? That’s a loaded question these days. It has been nearly month since the 2025 federal election, and I think it’s safe to say Alberta continues to experience a fierce wave of political rage.
Talk of independence is at a fever pitch, surpassing what was experienced in the 1980s or the 2000s. The tut-tut condescension of Eastern media, and the finger-wagging of federalist lap dogs like failed premier Jason Kenney, are doing nothing to quell the sentiment. These voices don’t even register in our communities anymore.
OTTAWA — A new poll suggests more than half of Canadians say they understand why Alberta might want to split from Canada — even if almost two-thirds say they don’t want that to happen.
The Leger survey, which polled 1,537 Canadians between May 16 and 18, suggests that 55 per cent of Canadians understand Albertans’ desire for independence.
After the Conservatives’ federal election loss, some Albertans frustrated with Liberal government policies are rallying for separation from Canada. Recently, hundreds of separatists held a rally at the Alberta legislature, angered at the province’s place within confederation.
It’s not the first time Albertans have pushed for sovereignty. There were upswings in separatist sentiment during the National Energy Program in the 1980s. More recently, separatist agitators gained steam in the dying years of the 2010s, angered over Liberal legislation that targeted the energy sector and a general downturn in the petro-province’s economic fortunes. This culminated with the now-defunct Wexit movement.
It’s apparent that a fourth Liberal victory has triggered a surge in anti-Ottawa sentiment in Alberta, but have things changed so much that a populace long opposed to pulling the province out of the Canada Pension Plan now supports it?
One reading of fresh polling commissioned by the Premier Danielle Smith’s government argues as much.
A Postmedia writer got his hands on a provincially funded survey by pollster Janet Brown’s Trend Research, and used the results to argue that most Albertans — 55 per cent — now back an APP instead of a CPP.
Dominic LeBlanc, president of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and minister responsible for Canada-US Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs, and One Canadian Economy, has expressed opposition to oil pipelines, highlighting a rift with Alberta’s energy priorities.
The premier of Alberta province has offered separatists the tantalising prospect of a referendum. Will Trump get his 51st state after all?
Many of the Albertans who have concluded the province must secede from Canada contemplate the potential breakup of their country with regret, if not outright grief.
Not so Ron Robertson.
The retired police detective and leader of the Independence Party looks forward to the day Alberta, an energy powerhouse often compared to Texas, is unshackled from the rest of the nation.
