Front Burner - Is Alberta headed towards a separation vote?

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Hundreds of people filled a banquet hall in Calgary last week to hear from the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group that wants Alberta to separate from Canada.They're trying to drum up support for a petition and earn enough signatures to trigger a referendum on separation in 2026.One of the reasons the petition is picking up steam is because Premier Danielle Smith's United Conservative Party has just passed legislation that would lower the bar for holding a referendum vote.Jason Markusoff is a producer and writer who covers Alberta politics for the CBC. He speaks to host Jayme Poisson about Smith's latest political moves, including the backlash, as well as the separatist movement itself.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

How did the internet go from this? You could actually find what you were looking for right away, bound to this. I feel like I'm in hell. Spoiler alert, it was not an accident. I'm Cory Doctorow, host of Who Broke the Internet from CBC's Understood. In this four-part series, I'm going to tell you

why the internet sucks now, whose fault it is, and my plan to fix it. Find Who Broke the Internet on whatever terrible app you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi everyone, I'm Jamie Prosson. Do you agree that the province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province of Canada? Yes or no? So what you're hearing here is one of the co-founders of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group that wants Alberta to separate from Canada.

And he's putting forward a proposed referendum question to a crowd. Hundreds of people filled a banquet hall in Calgary last week to hear from these guys who are trying to drum up support for a petition with enough signatures to trigger a referendum on separation in 2026. This followed a rally at the Alberta Legislature earlier this month where hundreds showed up to support the same cause. We wish to be in charge as Albertans of our own nation. One of the reasons the petition is picking up steam in Alberta is because Premier Daniel Smith's United Conservative Party on the day after the federal election tabled legislation that would lower the bar for holding a referendum

vote. The bill passed late last week. Only 177,000 signatures are now needed to trigger the vote. Previously it needed about 600,000. This all has a lot of people saying that the province is hurtling towards a referendum. Jason Markossoff covers Alberta politics for the CBC, and we're gonna discuss the latest moves by Smith, including the backlash,

as well as the separatist movement in Alberta itself, and whether it's actually gaining traction. Jason, great to have you. Hey, pal. That bill that I just mentioned, it was tabled the day after the federal election. And just tell me about the timing. Why would Premier Smith's government table it and why table it when they did? Now, Danielle Smith is from the activist side of Alberta, the side that believes in direct

democracy. Her argument is that this wasn't tied to a referendum movement, a separatist movement that she thinks that there's a citizens initiative device, this option in Alberta that enough petitioners can force a referendum. She believes there should be more referenda and therefore she lowered the threshold greatly. Right. She's saying more referenda not just on separation, but on other stuff too, I guess is her argument.

Yeah. In fact, and she's, and as we all ask her about separation, she says, well, this is for anything. I won't prejudge what issues citizens might want to put on the table, but that is up to citizens to decide and to get the number of signatures. All I've said is I will honor the process. Which seems to a lot of people naive because even before Mark Carney won his fourth term, people were talking about referendum and separation. They were gathering petitions to get

the previous threshold, these separatist groups. So she knew full well putting this out that a lot of people in Alberta in her conservative base were already pushing for a separation. She just made it a whole lot more likely that they succeed. Talk to me a little bit about their reaction to the bill. Oh my goodness, there's so much reaction to this because it, you know, anything that seems to be hurtling the country closer to break up or potential break up Will will get attention The idea that Alberta separation now has a vehicle to be active will get attention the provincial NDP

The lead opposition led by nine and then she has basically said she's a separatist Or if she's not she sure acting like one even though Daniel Smith protested she's not. Like how dumb does she think we are? Oh I have nothing to do with separation it's just those citizens doing it and don't pay no attention to this bill that I just passed which is specifically designed to allow them to do it. One of the biggest groups that's been opposed to this and really, really frustrated, using very sharp terms like calling this garbage, betrayal, are First Nations groups.

Bill 54, this is what we think of you. You're garbage like that. This is treaty land and we stand on it today. This is treaty country and any talk of separation is really insanity. I want to respectfully remind the Premier that this land that we stand on today is treaty land and is not yours to take or make sweeping decisions about. Of course, these First Nations groups, the treaty lands of 678 in Alberta, they signed these treaties with the Crown, the Canadian Crown, not with Alberta. So to their mind, there is no way you can even entertain the idea of ripping their

treaty lands out of Canada into this separate sovereign state of Alberta without their full and informed consent. And they are just furious about this. The province, Daniel Smith has tried to save some face by saying that adding an amendment to this legislation, Bill 54 that just passed a few days ago, that any question would have to respect treaty law, but the treaty chiefs are not happy with this still at all. And just to be clear, this bill has already passed, right? It was a pass third reading last week. It will be signed by the lieutenant governor into law.

And then it will be a whole lot easier to get a separation referendum or any of the kind of referendums that citizens want onto a ballot. And Danielson has already said that if that happens, it'll happen in 2026. As most Albertans know, I've repeatedly stated I do not support Alberta separating from Canada. I personally still have hope that there is a path forward for a strong and sovereign Alberta within a United Canada. Let's dig into the timing a little bit more.

Let's dig into the timing a little bit more. So as I mentioned, it was tabled the day after the federal election. We now have a fourth consecutive liberal government and the Liberal Party, worth noting, picked up three of 51 seats available between Alberta and Saskatchewan. And just what is the feeling on the ground about the federal election results where you are? Premier Smith has more or less said that the timing was deliberate. Not that they wanted to tap the separation fervour, but more that Danielle Smith didn't want to rock the boat in the federal election any more than she already had. Let's rewind to the start of the election when some comments of hers got out there that she'd given to a US concerted podcast

which said that... That's what I fear is that the longer this dispute goes on, politicians posture and it seems to be benefiting the liberals right now. So I would hope that we could put things on pause. This is what I've told administration officials. Let's just put things on pause so we can get through an election. Let's have the best person at the table make the argument for how they would deal with it. And I think that's Pierre Pauliev. And I do agree with that. She also told the right wing audience that The perspective that Pierre would bring would be very much in sync with the new direction in America.

That did not help the conservative cause. In fact, Daniel Smith wound up leaving the province on a mission to South Korea and Japan for a bit of it. One of the purposes was not rocking the boat, putting out all these controversial provisions, including the referendum up petition right after. But certainly it captured a mood and it captured something that was already happening in Alberta because the Conservatives are the home team. People believe in the Conservatives. And this was a, you know, keep in mind Albertans were, and all Canadians were until January expecting this 20 point landslide by the conservatives. There's been frustration in the past years and a bit of a separation for bubbling up in past years when the Liberals kept winning government despite such strong conservative showings.

There are people in Alberta who might think their voices don't matter and that voting liberal is just what the rest of the country does. Maybe that doesn't reflect Alberta values anymore. It has increased the desire to leave for a lot of Albertans. It was over 30 years ago that Clifford Olsen first called me. Secret phone calls from Canada's most notorious serial killer. I knew I was killing the children, but I couldn't stop myself. Now it's time to unearth the tapes because I believe there are still answers to be found. I'm Arlene Beynon from CBC's Uncover, Calls from a Killer, available now.

I just want to ask you about, you know, the evolution of the separatist movement in Alberta, right? And just how different this moment is from past moments. An Angus Reid poll from earlier this month shows that a minority of Albertans, 36% support leaving confederation. So that shrinks when you check out how serious that support is, right? Only 19% said that they would definitely vote to leave or a referendum held. We've talked about this movement on the show before. But just how has it evolved over the years? I know, for example, there was a big upswing

during the National Energy Program in the 1980s. Just compare and contrast the evolution of this moment to today. The 80s was a big flashpoint when Alberta felt like Ottawa was directly attacking the oil sector, this lifeblood and the industry for Alberta. A small party called the Western Canada Concept actually started running candidates and they won a by-election, a provincial by-election in the riding of Old Stidsbury back in 82. Big shock. They didn't go much farther. There was a general election later that year and they got wiped out. But

still, that was this big shock movement where people were talking about Western alienation and Western separatism. Then of course, a few years after that, we get the Reform Party, this big West wants in movement that ultimately became the Canadian Alliance, then became the backbone of the modern conservative party. But separatism didn't really go anywhere in the 80s. In 2019, there was this Wexit movement bubbling up. The Reform Party in the 80s and 90s, their slogan was the West wants in.

Wexit Canada's slogan is the West wants out. Polls show that 20-some percent of our burdens or maybe even 30-some percent of our burdens want to leave, but there was no real outlet for it. There's no real movement being organized. A few leaders that nobody had ever heard of before running the show. We're going to make Alberta great again and that is when we cut ourselves off from the leech that is Eastern Canada. And it petered out. Flash forward to now, still a lot of critical mass, you know, high 20s, low 30s, not much difference in the opinion from the Wexit era, but what seems to be different is

two things. One, there's an organization behind it. There's this group with Alberta Prosperity Project. We're gonna finally live free of all federal taxes. We're gonna live free of all federal regulation. You know, we're gonna double the oil production in the province of Alberta and every Albertan, every walk of life, every ethnicity, every group in this province, including Alberta's First Nations, are going to thrive. And other groups, there's a new separatist party called the Republican Party of Alberta, which seems to be getting a lot of money. A lot of momentum is going to run candidates, has a veteran organizer as its leader, Cam Davies, calling the shots,

quite interesting there. You have former UCP organizers, conservative organizers who are known and who have been successful pushing out former Premier Jason Kenney, winning some new policies, hardline policies on human rights and transgender issues at the U.C.P. conventions who helped support Daniel Smith. So there are these people who are organizing, who know how to fill a room and persuade people to get active in their communities and do this petition drive. And that's the other big, big thing that's different, this petition drive. In the past, you could be a separatist and be frustrated, but there's nowhere to go because there was no way in how the government of Alberta was going to put forth a referendum.

But now that there is a Citizens Initiative Movement and that Daniel Smith has made it so much easier to force a referendum on separation on the ballot, there is a place to direct that anger and that frustration and the desire to separate. And so there's a destination for that is that people are going to be pouring into it once this petition drive launches, probably this summer or fall. We've got the votes that we need to trigger the referendum. But of course, you know, we're going to have an 87 constituency door knocking campaign in and around pledges for the petition.

We're going to have an 87 constituency door knocking campaign in support of the referendum. You know, we hope by the end of the summer that we're going to have over a million signatures on a petition for independence from Canada. And I wonder if you could also help me understand Danielle Smith's place in all this, right? You know, she obviously heads the UCP party. I know that separating is particularly popular with members of that party. What kind of politics is she or political motivations is she dealing with here? Oh, there are politics at play. That same Angus Reid poll you said that said that 36% of Albertans either definitely or lean toward wanting to separate from Canada

within the people who vote UCP 65% so most people who are voting UCP are also now separatists or soft separatists She understands now that over 65% of the UCP base are on side with what we're offering Albertans. That's among the people who vote for it. Then you pare that down to the people who are active members of the party. And that seems to be a core that is heavily separatist.

In fact, a few weeks ago, she was holding a fundraiser in Bonneville where one of the lead organizers of the UCP out there happens to be also a lead separatist where he asks her on stage, do you agree that the province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province of Canada? Yes or no? Big applause, huge reaction from the audience. All she can do is laugh nervously and try to ask her own question. Do you believe that we can negotiate a better

deal with Ottawa and still be a strong, hold on, you got the yeses on his, I'm looking for yeses. How many of you believe that we can negotiate a new deal without looking for the yeses for a strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada? She got boozed and was heckled as she was trying to ask that other softer question. So this is what Daniel Smith is dealing with. And am I right to say there's an election on the horizon here? So the election is still two years away. We're looking into 2027. A lot can happen in two years. A lot tends to happen in two years in Alberta politics.

Certainly, usually, sometimes Premiers don't even last that long. There are some speculation out there that she wants to go to an early election, but I'm not sure where that would lead her if right now the party is split between being Federalist and Separatist. And gosh, I got to pause and say that Jason Marcus off of early 2025 cannot believe, cannot believe Jamie, that I'm talking about Federalist upheavals and separatist upheavals. This new lexicon that we're taking on in this whole thing is just, it's shocking.

Just tell me more about why that shocks you so much. What's changing now is that the argument is becoming, you know, morphing from less Ottawa or being anti-Ottawa to being anti-Canada. And that's a very strange and jarring step to take. This is a province where, you know, like everywhere, you're starting to see more cane flags out there with the whole 51st state threat. And right now we're talking, you know, with the Leafs,

sorry, Jamie, just limited from the playoffs. And the Oilers, once again this year, are quote unquote Canada's team. Right. You know, this is a province that, you know, tends to believe a lot in Canada. So to have this big debate about getting out of Canada, it's, and having it gathered Stephen becoming real so fast and so quickly and that Daniel Smith has abetted it with this referendum thing.

It's surprising to wrap our head around. Also, you ask anybody in Quebec, during those years where there was a separatist threat, where there's a referendum on the table, it's all consuming. There may be other issues on the table. In Alberta, of course, there are. There's healthcare issues. There's a healthcare controversy and scandal brewing within Alberta's health system. There's education pressures, potential strikes.

The oil and gas economy is always thrown by world prices. But when we're talking about separation, we're talking about the potential that Canada could be torn apart and Alberta could leave. That is reasonably going to suck a lot of the oxygen out of the air. Picking up on this idea that you were just talking about that it's moved so quickly. I know Naheed Nenshi, the leader of the NDP, has his own political motivations here, but I was struck by one thing I heard him say recently. He was making a comparison to Brexit and how David Cameron let that vote go ahead, thinking that it was like a fringe minority and that he would let

it go to a vote and actually letting it go to a vote itself kind of increased the popularity of the idea. And then of course, the UK voted to separate from the EU. So I mean, it just was an interesting parallel that I thought that he brought up. David Cameron didn't expect the Brexit movement to win. The Brexiteers sometimes didn't. But they, you know, they wound up making the better, rosier, bigger arguments. And one big difference here that I think we have to keep an eye on is in the Brexit campaign, David Cameron offered the referendum question, but he also argued consistently for the benefits of staying within the European Union. Yes. It's not clear yet that Danielle Smith, if we go to referendum, is going to actively campaign to keep it, stay in Alberta,

especially given where her party base is and that her past reluctance to actually cross her party base and fight for the whole province. So you mentioned Quebec before, obviously. That is the only other time the question of leaving the country has actually made it to a referendum, Quebec in 1995. And Albertans looking at separatism are really, as I understand it, modeling themselves off of that history. The separatist movement in Quebec shook the country, obviously.

Decision desk calling for a no victory numerically tonight. It's gonna be a squeaker. Maybe as much as one percentage point separating the two sides. 50.6% no, 49.4% yes. I know you've been thinking about the lessons that it could offer Alberta in this present moment, and what are they? Well, a lot of people are talking first about the cautionary tale, the economic cautionary tale. I mean, this is ironic that a lot of the argument for separation

is economic, that Ottawa with its climate regulations and energy policies is finally putting its thumb on Alberta. And without the federal regulations of the yoke of Ottawa, Alberta could be so much more prosperous. We could be wealthier per capita. We would be able to drill, baby, drill pipelines everywhere. This is the future that the separatists are selling that will be so much more economically stronger without Ottawa holding us back, goes the argument. Quebec suffered greatly because of its separatist movement. The uncertainty that it brought, people want to invest in a province, in a part of Canada if they didn't know what its future was going to be, if it was going to be in Canada or be out on its own, this unique country with cutoff for most of the

rest of the world, bracketed by Canada. The same thing in Alberta. A lot of economic and business experts are worried that this is going to sap investment in time when Alberta needs investment to renew its oil patch, to diversify its economy. In fact, Atco, which is this large company based in Calgary, this large energy and pipeline company, has said that they've had Japanese and South Korean clients saying, we're not sure how we can invest until you figure out what Alberta is. Why would we put sink money into here? So there is that real big

cloud and you know, before the separatism movement, Montreal was the bigger economic center than Toronto. That changed rapidly when financial institutions and major companies left Montreal for the safer harbor of within English Canada. You know, If it goes far down that road where was the separatism becomes a real ballot question and a real option, there could be a huge chill on the financial and business and economic and investment sectors within Alberta. So we have this new prime minister who passed a deal with this growing problem. I think it's fair to say it's growing. Smith recently announced that there will be a sovereignty panel to explore long-term options for economic and constitutional protections from Ottawa. She said last week, the quote, as scared as these people are of what Donald Trump is going to do to their economy, that's how scared Albertans are of what the

liberals are going to do to the Alberta economy. Well, I think Albertans are hurt and betrayed. That's how I think Albertans are feeling. I think Canada as a whole got a sense of that feeling of hurt and betrayal with the way the Americans are treating us right now. But we're being treated, we've been treated that way for the last 10 years. Treated like we should be just shut up and just be satisfied with whatever the central government decides to do, regardless of whether it's constitutional or not.

I think that's what you were saying. She's also demanding a bunch of things from the Liberal government. She's talked about them. Easy access to all three ocean coasts for oil and gas projects, for example, more financial transfers. Um, many of the Liberals' climate policies walked back. Uh, and then of course, he, he's dealing with this growing separatist movement. And just what kind of challenges does all of this pose for Prime Minister Carney? And is there a sense in Alberta

that he's taking this seriously? Mark Carney won on one nationality crisis, basically just trying to be the man to repel the threat of the 51st state of Donald Trump's takeover, of Donald Trump's economic crushing of Alberta or of Canada with tariffs and other economic measures. And now he finds that he's, that seems like it's been managed better with his, his meaning of Trump. But now there's this other big nationality of crisis with this Western separatist front. It's a challenge. I mean, it's a challenge that, you know, no prime minister has faced since Kretien in 95, having a potential referendum

question. And this to test a new prime minister is quite a challenge, especially a liberal prime minister who knows that it's animus towards his own party that tends to be formed part of the backbone of the separatist fervor. It was no surprise that he made sure that there was a cabinet member from Edmonton, Eleanor Olszewski, in cabinet, also a Saskatchewan MP, Buckley Bellinger, both in his cabinet. He has promised to make Canada an energy superpower. He has talked about pipelines in a much more open way, talked about walking back or modifying some of the Trudeau government's climate policies in the

name of build, baby build, and having more economic power within our country, more inter-provincial connections for both energy and other trade. He is speaking a language that is more amenable to what Alberta has been talking about. Will it be enough? Dan Dale Smith has really set the bar high. She is calling for the moon and it'll be interesting to see if she can accept partial wins as wins And there was an indication this past week of why that might not be the case when you look at how she responded to cabinet She didn't respond to the fact that there was no burden in cabinet She didn't respond to the fact that the new energy minister Kim Hodgson Who's an investment banker with capital investment

experience, also used to be on the board of MegEnergy, a major oil sands company. The oil sands sector, the energy sector is through the roof happy about Kim Hodgson. She didn't talk about those. She only talked about Julie De Bruyzen, who is the new environment minister, who hasn't spoken yet, but has had some background supportive of carbon tax and the ban on single-use plastics and she's already slamming this environment minister who hasn't talked publicly yet as Yibo 2.0 ignoring all the potential positives for Alberta from Ottawa but only focusing on the negatives. Which raises the question if she's trying to tamp down separatism by getting some wins off Ottawa, is she going to take partial wins as wins or is she going to keep criticizing

and keep on ante-ing up with frustration against Ottawa and anti-Ottawa fervor? What's that going to do to the separatist movement? Jason, I could ask you about this for the next several hours. You're such a well. I only have three hours, sorry. But I feel like I have to wrap this up. So let me do it here with the implications that this could have for conservative leader Pyropauliev. In order to return to the House of Commons, he plans to run for a seat in the Alberta riding of Battle River Crowfoot. He's made it clear that he's against a divided Canada. He's been very clear about that. But I do imagine that this does put him in a bit of a bind, right? Fair?

I mean, he's going to win his seat. The party won by 82%. So he's fine. But he will be asked questions. In rural Alberta is now a separatist country. So he is going to be representing an area where a lot of people want to leave Canada. On the by-election trail, he'll hear a lot of it. And he'll be the voice of these people to Ottawa. And the same time being a federal party leader who wants to lead Canada when so many of his residents want to leave Canada. He's talked about this already. He said, look, I'm against separation. I'm born and raised. Albertan, I love Canada. I think we we need to unite this country. Albertans have a lot of legitimate grievances. Let's be blunt, Canada's biggest industry, which happens to largely be

situated in Alberta, has been under attack for the last decade. And we'll see if that talking point is enough for the people who will be his new constituents. Yeah. Okay. Jason, such a pleasure. Thank you. Always fun, Jamie. Thanks. All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.