Alberta

As Alberta lurches towards a potential referendum on seceding from Canada, a majority of Canadians think the threat of separation should be taken seriously.

A new Leger poll for the Association for Canadian Studies shows that 52 per cent of Canadians believe the threats should be taken seriously — a view that’s held most strongly in Alberta itself.

Alberta separation is top of the news in the United States.

USA is paying attention to what Danielle Smith and Alberta is saying.

Will Mark Carney Liberals finally listen? pic.twitter.com/3JvX4Wn00K

— David Krayden (@DavidKrayden) May 7, 2025

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith threw down the gauntlet to newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney in a livestreamed address Monday, calling on him to negotiate a new deal between Ottawa and Alberta guaranteeing more pipelines and changes to equalization.

Danielle Smith "We have no issue with Alberta continuing to subsidize smaller provinces with their needs, but there is no excuse for such large and powerful economies like Ontario, Quebec, B.C."

"…To be clear from the outset, our government will not be putting a vote on… pic.twitter.com/nSjPnnJeGs

— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) May 5, 2025

Albertans will not stand idle while Ottawa continues to block our resources, decimate our economy, and violate our constitutional rights.

After a decade of destructive Liberal-NDP policies that have cost us over half a trillion dollars in lost investment and hundreds of… pic.twitter.com/gdjZbpp5OO

— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) May 5, 2025

Nearly a quarter of people in Alberta see themselves as Albertans first, and Canadians second. And one in 10 believe their province would be economically stronger as part of the U.S., while another two in 10 favour a future as an independent country, a poll conducted in the wake of the federal election has found.

One hundred and seventy-seven thousand people.

That’s roughly 3.5 per cent of Alberta’s population. It’s also the amount of signatures that will be needed to force a separation referendum designed to take those five million people and their land out of Canada.

Alberta independence groups had already been gathering online registrants who were keen to add their names to a petition drive when the law required far more Albertans — around 600,000 — to sign up to trigger a constitutional referendum.

The flags and T shirts for sale on Amazon have already been updated — same profanity, same maple leaf, new name: F**k Trudeau is out, and F**k Carney has arrived.

The Liberal victory was not a landslide for political newbie Mark Carney as the country remains deeply — sometimes angrily — polarized. Nowhere is that postelection angst being voiced more than in Alberta, the province which largely defied the red wave, whose premier had pledged an “unprecedented national unity crisis” should Carney not meet her list of demands and where fringe groups are now agitating for separation.