For decades, Alberta separatism was a fringe cause. On Monday, voters in Canada’s oil heartland will decide whether to take the first step toward a referendum on leaving the country.
Alberta, home to the fourth largest proven oil reserves in the world, will not vote to leave Canada on October 19. Voters will instead decide whether the province should remain part of Canada or begin the legal process for a future referendum on separation.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who called the vote but supports remaining in Canada, said support for starting the separation process, which was around 23 per cent in a recent poll, is “still too high for my liking.”
Alberta has a long history of conflict with the federal government over oil and federal power. Liberal prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and, decades later, his son Justin became deeply unpopular in the province because of their energy policies.
Justin Trudeau’s government imposed a national carbon tax and other climate measures that Alberta leaders said were hurting its oil industry. Yet separatist parties typically received only 1 to 2 per cent of the vote, said former Alberta premier Jason Kenney.
Then came the pandemic and the Freedom Convoy, which paralyzed parts of Ottawa, the Canadian capital, and blocked key Canada-US border crossings.
“They needed a new cause,” Kenney told the Associated Press. “And that naturally morphed into separatism.”
Restrictions imposed during the pandemic have exacerbated separatism
Jeff Rath, a leader in the independence movement, said federal vaccine rules preventing unvaccinated Canadians from flying were his breaking point.
“If Trudeau doesn’t let me leave Alberta, I’m just going to take my whole province back and leave,” Rath recalled telling a friend. “COVID was really the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“A lot of people were radicalized by the convoy,” he said.
Convoy for Freedom 2022 began over vaccine requirements for cross-border truckers, but has morphed into a broader revolt against pandemic restrictions.
Kenney said people mobilized in the face of anger over globalization, vaccines and pandemic restrictions, while social media allowed previously isolated activists to come together and organize.
“They found each other and found a cause,” Kenney said.
Kenney said the movement has also become more professional, building organizations, raising money and attracting political operatives with campaigning and fundraising experience.
He also finds significant overlap between separatist activists and people who support Russian President Vladimir Putin or believe in conspiracy theories about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kenney stressed he was describing activists, not typical separation voters, who he characterized as frustrated Albertans sending a message to Ottawa.
Kenney said the MAGA movement has been “a source of inspiration” for some separatist activists. He said they “attempted to infiltrate with at least some success” the United Conservative Party he founded. Smith replaced Kenney in 2022 after appealing to United Conservative Party members angry over COVID-19 restrictions.
“Literally, you can watch the players,” Kenney said of the convoy and separatist movements. “They’re the same people.”
Carney finds unusual support in Alberta
Premier Mark Carney has made getting Alberta oil to new markets a national priority and supports a proposed pipeline to the West Coast. His more pro-business and energy policies, as well as his opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and 51st State rhetoric, have made the federal Liberal leader exceptionally popular in conservative Alberta.
Kenney, one of the most prominent Conservative critics of Trudeau’s approach to Alberta, said Carney “talks like an Albertan,” understands the province’s grievances and aspirations and is moving in the right direction on energy.
Rath called Carney a “formidable opponent,” saying “every major politician” in Alberta and Canada is against the separatists and acknowledged it was an uphill battle. He said he would be “thrilled” to get more than 30% of the vote, well short of the majority.
“Canada faces real threats to our economy, to our security and to our way of life,” Carney said. “We must be strong and we are stronger together.”
Activists head to Washington
Alberta ships about 90 per cent of its crude oil exports to the United States, and the separatists have taken their campaign directly to Washington.
Rath confirmed that he and other independence supporters met three times with U.S. State Department officials and presented a document outlining what an independent Alberta could offer the United States.
Rath claimed that those involved in the meetings were going directly to the White House and that a possible pipeline across the United States to the Pacific was “literally a topic of our last meeting with the U.S. State Department.”
The Department of State stated that “The Department meets regularly with a wide range of representatives. The vote is a decision for the people of Alberta.”
Kenney called the awareness campaign “crazy,” saying people without a “democratic mandate” were talking with a foreign government “about the status of a separate state that doesn’t exist.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Alberta a “natural partner.”
The future of separatism
Keith Wilson, another Alberta independence leader who was the lead lawyer for organizers of the 2022 convoy, said separatists see the vote as a way to give Alberta more leverage in its relationship with Ottawa, even in the absence of independence.
“That’s right, because it’s called leverage. It’s called negotiation,” Wilson said. He said he would accept substantial structural changes to Alberta’s relationship with Ottawa without independence.
“I don’t think it will go backwards,” Kenney said of the separatist movement in Alberta. Even 10 to 20 percent support, he pointed out, would far exceed the separatists’ historic vote share. If the low participation rate pushes them to reach 30%, “they will be even more emboldened”.
“This does not pose a threat to Canada,” Kenney said. “But it’s a threat to the conservative movement.”
Alberta is not the only challenge to Canada’s national unity. Quebec voters returned the Parti Québécois to power on October 5, even though support for independence remains around 30% and its leader has said he will not hold a referendum as long as Trump is president of the United States.
Quebec voters have twice rejected independence, most recently by a razor-thin margin in a 1995 referendum.
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