Five weeks from now, Albertans will vote on a suite of referendum questions, including the question of whether or not the province should remain in Canada or hold a second referendum on whether to leave the country.
It’s quite literally an existential question. Yet, where’s the urgency?
And that’s a problem.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to Strasbourg as Canada and the European Union prepare a sweeping new partnership. He will attend European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union address on September 16 and address the European Parliament the following day.
The organizations lobbying to keep Alberta in Canada ahead of a fall referendum vote are short on cash, tight on time and hamstrung in their ability to organize a concerted campaign for the federalist side.
Public opinion polls consistently show that separatist voters are in the minority in Alberta – but they are also highly motivated. That means in the Oct. 19 vote on whether to launch a formal separation referendum, how many people show up to vote could be the determining factor between a nail-biter and a decisive win for the federalist side.
For generations, Alberta has been treated unfairly within Canada, creating immense frustration among many of those who call the province home. I have heard that frustration for decades from business leaders, workers, entrepreneurs and families throughout Alberta, and there are good reasons for it.
An independence group has released a “transition plan,” sketching out what it sees as a roadmap should Albertans vote in the future to become a sovereign nation.
The Alberta Transition Council released the 214-page report on Thursday, laying out a series of proposals tied to how life in Alberta might look in the event of a future “yes” vote on independence.
Chris Scott sat in the driver’s seat of his 2001 Monaco Dynasty motorhome last week, bumping along the network of rural highways in southern Alberta.
The vehicle creaked a bit. Some leather-covered furniture was cracking, and some cabinet drawer latches didn’t work anymore.
It’s like Alberta, Scott said: you can ignore problems and let them get worse, or you can pay attention to them and fix them.
Monte Solberg is between a rock, a hard place and a divided conservative base.
The former Conservative MP and founder of Vote to Stay wants Albertans to believe their “future is stronger within a united Canada than outside of it.” Of all the players trying to sway the Oct. 19 vote — pro-separation and pro-Confederation — his path is the most treacherous.
For three days, Canada and the United States (US) appeared to have a trade deal. On August 19, President Donald Trump said they probably had one. Canada’s trade minister, Dominic LeBlanc, said the two countries were “very close,” while US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said negotiators had reached an agreement. Then, late on August 21, Prime Minister Mark Carney pulled Canada’s negotiators out of Washington and killed it.
Alberta’s independence referendum is now just two months away, with nothing less than the future of the country at stake, so I wanted to check back in with one of the more thoughtful separatist leaders.
I remain one of those flag-waving, Canada-first Albertans who intends to vote Option 1 on Oct. 19 — that Alberta should remain a province of Canada. Yet because of voices like Keith Wilson’s, who advocates Option 2 (that the Alberta government commence the legal process required under the Constitution to hold a binding referendum on secession), I am far from complacent about the outcome.
Alberta will hold a binding referendum on secession early next year if the results of October’s provincewide vote favour launching the process to separate from the rest of Canada, Premier Danielle Smith asserted during town halls this summer.
The Premier’s timeline allocates about 2.5 months for consultations with Indigenous people, a window she said aligns with what Canada pencilled in for discussions over a proposed bitumen pipeline to the west coast.
Only 60 days remain until Albertans answer 10 questions that could shape the future of the province.
Nine focus on immigration and constitutional reform. But it’s the 10th question — whether Albertans want the province to remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on separation — that is increasingly poised to animate town halls and rallies scheduled in the coming days.
Canadian researchers using artificial intelligence to track foreign interest in the Alberta separatism debate have found the province’s political discourse is being targeted online by Russian and American interests in both overt and covert ways.
The first data from a study that began last month indicate Russian content farms have been pushing pro-separatist content into online communities and using Canadians to “launder” those messages by sharing such material on their social media feeds, the researchers said.
In the spring of 2025, the separatist Republican Party of Alberta seemed to be making a push.
Months before a revival of separatist sentiment would put provincial politics in a headlock, the fledgling party released a five-point plan for Alberta independence, sent doorknockers into neighbourhoods and announced its new leader would run in a June byelection for a chance at a seat in the legislature.
In some Alberta separatists’ arguments, their big idea isn’t so much about severing the province from Canada. The goal is to fortify trade bonds with Alberta’s southern neighbour.
“We sit beside the largest economy in the world, with the shortest and lowest-cost trade routes to our most important customer,” independence leader Keith Wilson said in a social media post last week. “The problem is not geography. The problem is Ottawa control.”
Most Albertans are too busy working, paying the bills, driving kids to practice, and discovering that an ordinary trip to the grocery store can now resemble a major capital expense. They do not spend their evenings reading court judgments or federal transfer tables.
They have good reason not to follow every quarrel between Edmonton and Ottawa. But Question 10 on the October 19 Provincial referendum deserves their attention.
