The federal government often makes decisions that negatively affect the well-being of Albertans. Since the Liberals’ election in 2015, many of these decisions have been harmful to Alberta by design. The Liberals want to fight climate change, and they think Alberta’s oil and gas industry is the main contributor. Therefore, imposing heavy-handed policies to restrict Alberta’s major source of wealth will achieve their goals.
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When the Alberta government announced the makeup of what was to be an impartial panel examining the economic cost of independence, a couple of the names raised eyebrows.
Ted Morton would be taking part. The former provincial finance minister was a signatory to the infamous “firewall letter” that was published in 2001 and called for greater Alberta autonomy in Canada. Meantime, the panel was to be headed by Jack Mintz, a conservatively inclined economist who wrote a 2020 book with Mr. Morton (and Tom Flanagan) called Moment of Truth: How to Think About Alberta’s Future. In it, the authors said none favoured separation as a first option, “but we also see it as a viable last resort if all else fails.”
“Canada’s Texas is threatening divorce, and it could eventually become the 51st state,” crows the ultraconservative think-tank behind the Trump administration.
The free people of Alberta are about to take a vote.
It’s Canada’s fourth-largest province, both by size (about 411,187 sq mi) and population (5 million).
Several factors have triggered concern in some corners of the country about the role the United States may play in Alberta’s upcoming referendum on separation. They range from a Trump cabinet secretary’s remarks, to administration meetings with separatists, to the spectre of U.S.-based foreign influence campaigns.
But what if the biggest lift Washington gave to the independence movement was done in plain sight and through official policy channels, even though it was likely inadvertent and an indirect boost?
For months now, Alberta business groups and labour unions have been predicting an economic meltdown in the province while the spectre of separation hangs over Albertans’ heads.
Doug Griffiths, who is president of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce (and who was once one of the reddest Tory ministers in the government of red Tory premier Alison Redford), has been leading the surge of fearmongering.
A referendum is looming in Alberta, which will reveal this fall how far the province is ready to go toward the independence option.
For the rest of Canada, a big question revolves around how much are we willing to do to keep Alberta in the federation. Some new polling by Abacus Data may offer some insights into that question and the short answer is: quite a lot.
The proposed crude oil pipeline from Alberta’s oilsands to the B.C. coast that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been championing and that Prime Minister Mark Carney has ostensibly signed off on in a “grand bargain” last month is unlikely to be built.
It won’t begin construction as early as next year, as Smith has suggested, or be delivering one million barrels a day of Alberta crude to the Pacific coast by the mid-2030s, if ever.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Wednesday that a group of First Nations chiefs need to “check themselves,” after they accused her of potential treasonous activity for calling a separation vote.
The Assembly of Treaty Chiefs, representing First Nations across Alberta, unanimously voted this week to ask RCMP to look into whether the province’s fall referendum amounts to criminal treason by Smith and her United Conservative Party.
The chiefs, in a news release, said organizing the vote is an intentional treaty violation and that Smith’s government is ignoring serious risks to Canada’s sovereignty.
Would Alberta seniors lose their Canadian pensions if the province separates? Would Albertans lose their Canadian passports?
Even these basic questions are disputed in Alberta right now as both sides gear up for a referendum on the question of independence this October.
Separatist supporter Wendy Fitzpatrick said pensions were the biggest point of concern she heard from older Albertans while gathering signatures, and she believes the pro-Canada side is spreading misinformation on that.
OTTAWA — Eleanor Olszewski jokes that, like most good Albertans, she originally comes from Saskatchewan.
Born in Swift Current, Sask., Olszewski called the small city home for only a couple of years. Her family moved to Medicine Hat, Alta. where she was raised, before leaving for Edmonton to attend university, achieving degrees first in pharmacy and then later law, eventually settling down to raise her own two children in the provincial capital.
Premier Danielle Smith has been maintaining something of a delicate balancing act between satisfying the independence element within her party base and most Albertans at large who still lean toward the federalist side. Of late, though, the premier has decided to fall solidly onto one side of the debate, and it may lead to dire consequences for the United Conservative Party (UCP) in the future.
Alberta is the most attractive destination for Canadians who move between provinces, while Newfoundland and Labrador is the least, a new study shows.
The Fraser Institute report measured that movement, known as interprovincial migration, over the 30 years from 1995 to 2024 using Statistics Canada data. It counted only moves within Canada, not immigration from abroad.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
The man is gone but he is not forgotten and he should not be forgotten. Ever.
We still feel the anger, the rage.
The ivory tower crowd tries to soften the blow by using the fancy-pants word “alienation.”
Who’s leading the “remain” side in this divisive, near-existential referendum on separation for Alberta? And who’s leading the “leave” side, pushing for a future binding independence question?
These are simple questions. There are not simple answers.
If there’s one thing that unites the disparate sides of this debate, it’s that neither is organized by a single, top-down umbrella group.
Alberta sits on some of the world’s largest energy reserves, yet we’re landlocked and constantly hamstrung by Ottawa’s web of regulations, policies, and environmental vetoes. Federal rules don’t just slow projects down — they kill them outright and drive billions in investment south of the border. The result? We subsidize the rest of Canada while our core industry gets throttled.
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