Alberta

Scott Russell doesn’t much look like a revolutionary. A 40-something dad, he’s dressed like he’s headed to work. I meet him on a bridge overlooking an Edmonton freeway. Beneath us, drivers in 18-wheeler trucks zoom by, blasting their horns in support like motorised tubas. Russell waves an Alberta flag, alongside about a dozen other protesters doing the same. Like him, they seem less like rebels and more like archetypal working-class Albertans, with loose-fitting jeans, gritty ballcaps and pragmatic phrases like “git‘r’done”. Yet Russell tells me that, when the day comes, he’ll vote for his province to leave Canada. “I have sworn eternal resistance upon all forms of tyranny against men,” he says, “and the federal government is tyrannical.”

On a cool night in September, a flotilla of pickup trucks flying Alberta flags sits in the parking lot outside a community hall in Sylvan Lake. The community of 17,000 people is about halfway between Edmonton and Calgary, surrounded by rolling farmland and central Alberta’s oil and gas industry.

A crowd of about 120 people has gathered for a town hall organized by the Alberta Prosperity Project, a pro-sovereignty group.

That’s no different than Quebec’s sentiment.

On Monday, Albertans will vote on whether their provincial government should begin the legal process toward a future, binding referendum on separation from Canada. After months of debate, political positioning, and speculation about whether a highly motivated separatist minority could produce a surprise, we have one final survey before the votes are counted.

And the evidence is increasingly pointing in one direction.

Researchers tracking how online influence campaigns are targeting Monday’s referendum in Alberta have noticed an increase in activity from the United States in the final weeks before the vote.

Online narratives pushing the idea that Alberta has no choice but to sever ties and join the U.S. have become the dominant message being pushed into Canada by American sources, according to the Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Data, and Conflict at the University of Regina.

It’s barely 8 a.m. and Darcy Gerow is talking about tearing Alberta’s political system down to its very foundations.

Gerow, a podcaster and former deputy leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada, is addressing a crowd of Alberta separatists in a low-ceilinged conference room a few minutes’ drive from the Calgary airport. In his speech, called “the anarcho-capitalist case for Alberta,” he advocates for a system of government by the same name, which would privatize all aspects of society.

“The long-term goal is the complete replacement of state monopoly,” Gerow said.

Alberta has long been seen as a province with an economic advantage — the wealthiest in Canada in terms of GDP per capita, rich in natural resources and no provincial sales tax.

But not all Albertans are feeling that prosperity.

Albertans frustrated with Ottawa point to a “lost decade” marred by unstable oil prices, cancelled pipeline projects and unemployment.

Jim Fedor booked Oct. 19 off work to make sure he can vote in Alberta’s referendum.

“I’m looking forward to it. Never voted in a referendum like this before, so it’ll be something new,” said Fedor, who stopped at the CBC News pop-up at the Seton library branch in southeast Calgary last week.

“I’m gonna vote Option 1 on the separation question, for Alberta to stay in Canada, and the other nine questions I plan to vote no for each one,” he said. “I’ll get there early, and I’m willing to wait to get in and vote.”

I still remember the CBC’s 911 townhall. It may as well have been chaired by Osama bin Laden.

Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney is calling on Albertans to vote in next week’s referendum on separation in large numbers, and to deliver a decisive result for the federalist side.

“I’m concerned about turnout, because the lower the turnout, the better for the separatist side,” Kenney told CTV Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday. “If turnout is 40 per cent or below, I think they could actually win.”

As part of her latest round of polling, Janet Brown sought to understand the factors driving support for separatism in advance of Alberta’s Oct. 19 referendum.

She found most support wasn’t found amongst people who live outside the major cities.

It wasn’t the majority opinion of people with a certain level of education.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre urged Albertans to vote to stay in Canada in the province’s upcoming referendum, arguing that Alberta’s resentments are best addressed by doubling down on the values that the Canadian Constitution was originally meant to uphold.

At a keynote speech in Edmonton, Poilievre made a classical conservative case for why the province’s deep resentments toward confederation are actually due to years of relentless government overreach rather than issues with the country itself