The RCMP has informed the Alberta government that there is no evidence the province’s separatist movement has been subject to foreign interference, according to the minister who oversees policing.
Mike Ellis, Alberta’s Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Services, on Wednesday attributed this information to the RCMP’s deputy commissioner, noting the update landed before the government learned about an alleged privacy breach involving the personal information of 2.9 million Albertans.
EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Alberta separatists said Monday they have formally submitted almost 302,000 signatures to try to trigger a referendum on the province leaving Canada.
The group needed 178,000 signatures to force the province to consider such a vote.
The question of separation could go on a provincewide ballot as early as October, as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said she would move forward if enough names are gathered and verified. Smith has said she personally does not support the oil-rich province leaving Canada.
h/t patthedog
If Alberta could vote in U.S. elections, President Donald Trump would have won in a landslide there all three times he ran for the White House. Alberta is one of Canada’s 10 provinces and the closest thing the country has to a red state.
People based in the Netherlands are behind several YouTube channels that promote Alberta separatism but are fronted by hired actors, according to an investigation by CBC News’s visual investigations team and Radio-Canada’s Décrypteurs.
CBC News identified three individuals in the Netherlands whose digital trail links them to accounts that hired actors to appear on the YouTube channels. Two of them attended the same online course that teaches customers how to create “faceless” YouTube channels that generate passive income for the creators, who remain in the shadows.
The mispronunciation of Regina — as in, the capital of Saskatchewan — was a clue. Then there was the reference to B.C. MLA Dallas Brodie, a woman, as a “he.”
These slip-ups helped lead researchers at the Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO) in Montreal to what they say is a network of affiliated YouTube accounts that appear to belong to concerned Canadians, sympathize with some Albertans’ grievances and push the idea of American annexation.
“The video narrators performed ‘Albertan,’ but there were these moments where you’re like, ‘OK, so this person is not from here,’ ” said Chris Ross, the senior analyst at the Observatory, who led his team’s recent probe into thousands of suspicious YouTube videos.
Who is behind this? Who stands to gain? Russia? China? Liberal Party members? Likely the latter.
AI makes it easy to create a click-bait video the creator(s) may have simply found a rich vein to mine for cash.
Alberta is going to daylight saving time all year round.
Premier Danielle Smith and her UCP government have made the decision. It will go to the Alberta legislature for debate this week.
Makes sense to me.
CALGARY — Premier Danielle Smith has applauded US President Donald Trump’s recent decision to issue several pipeline permits to facilitate cross-border transport of crude oil and petroleum products between the US and Canada, as well as a permit to construct a new pipeline.
Yesterday, the White House approved the advancement of multiple pipeline projects carrying Alberta oil to the United States.
Expanding pipeline capacity to the U.S. is something I’ve been advocating from this U.S. Administration since their last election. It has paid off!
This… pic.twitter.com/3qtbAm6VQ2
— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) April 16, 2026
OTTAWA — A new poll finds that support for Alberta separatism is at its highest level in at least five years, with a fall independence referendum looking increasingly likely.
The poll, taken by Pollara Strategic Insights, shows that 27 per cent of decided voters in Alberta would vote for the province to separate from Canada. This is a seven point increase from December 2025 and a record-high over the five years Pollara has spent tracking support for independence among Albertans.
A First Nation in Alberta has said that a separatist push for the province to secede from Canada is “consummately irresponsible and dishonourable” and should be shut down, arguing in court that a proposed referendum would violate their treaty rights.
A minority of residents of the oil-rich province have long argued that the province’s woes are due to the structure of payments to the federal government and a perceived inability to get their vast fossil fuel reserves to market.
In recent months, separatists have seized on the sentiment and collected nearly 180,000 signatures to request a referendum. But the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, near Edmonton, has asked a court to halt the campaign.
Alberta separatists are making alternative plans to pressure Premier Danielle Smith’s government to call an independence referendum if a judge throws out their current efforts after a multiday hearing next week.
Mitch Sylvestre is organizing an independence petition under Alberta’s Citizen Initiative Act. Mr. Sylvestre’s campaign needs 178,000 signatures to force a constitutional referendum. Earlier this week, Mr. Sylvestre declared organizers had reached that goal, one month ahead of deadline.
In the middle of a trade war and Donald Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st state of the United States, Canadians are watching in astonishment as figures close to the president embrace a minority separatist movement in the province of Alberta. Secret meetings with representatives of the U.S. State Department, the open support of figures from the MAGA movement, and the possibility of a referendum this fall — for which signatures are already being collected — paint a picture in which many see the shadow of foreign interference.
Alberta’s new legislation limiting “ideology” in classrooms is its own type of ideological flag – which is ironic, since one of the changes proposed by Bill 25 is to prohibit, with limited exceptions, the display of all flags other than Canada’s and Alberta’s.
This Bill 25 flag, also known as the “Act to Remove Politics and Ideology from Classrooms and Amend the Education Act, 2026,” is multi-functional. On paper, is it designed to “ensure that classrooms remain neutral”; it also “protect(s) employees from being required to take part in activities that conflict with their personal beliefs” (though their abstention could be perceived as an expression of personal belief, but never mind).
The group behind the Alberta independence petition said it has received the 177,732 signatures it needs to force a referendum.
Mitch Sylvestre, head of Stay Free Alberta, confirmed to the National Post that it has met the threshold. The petition still needs official approval from Elections Alberta, which will review the signatures according to the Citizen Initiative Act after the petition is submitted after the official deadline of May 2.
Alberta has proposed a bill that would limit the use of medically assisted dying – also known as voluntary euthanasia – in the Canadian province solely to end-of-life circumstances.
In 2021, Canada expanded access to medically assisted dying, known domestically by the acronym Maid, to people with serious, incurable illnesses or disabilities, even if their death is not reasonably foreseeable.
Canada is also due to expand access next year to people whose only medical condition is mental illness, though that has twice been delayed.
CALGARY – With about six weeks left to collect signatures, supporters of Alberta independence are working to gather enough names on a citizen-led petition that could trigger a province-wide referendum on whether Alberta should separate from Canada.
But even if the campaign succeeds and a majority of voters backed separation in a referendum, constitutional experts say the vote would only begin what could be a long and complicated process of negotiations with Ottawa, the provinces, and Indigenous nations.
