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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith dug the separatist hole she’s now stuck in

UCP leader Danielle Smith on election night in Calgary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
UCP leader Danielle Smith on election night in Calgary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

Former conservative premiers Ralph Klein and Peter Lougheed told Alberta separatists to pound dirt

An Angus Reid survey released this week found that 56 per cent of Albertans believe Smith is handling the separatism issue poorly and 58 per cent believe she is calling the referendum to appease the separatists in her party. Sixty-nine per cent of Albertans surveyed believe the separatists will never accept a no vote result in the referendum.

Smith dug the political hole she now finds herself in. After years of bending over backward for the separatists in her party by amending laws, fuelling the flames of resentment, and appealing for them to the courts, she has found herself in a politically untenable situation. Simply claiming to be pro-Canada at the eleventh hour is hilariously unconvincing.

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Alberta Politics

Yes, Alberta is actually having a separation referendum

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, US President-elect Donald Trump, and celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, US President Donald Trump, and celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

There’s a lot happening following Premier Smith’s announcement last week that she has decided to hold a province-wide referendum on October 19, 2026 about Alberta’s separation from Canada. Here are some of the latest updates:

  • “The party won’t be taking a position and I won’t be making mine public,” UCP President Rob Smith told CBC Radio this week when asked if he or the governing party would pick a side in the Alberta separation referendum. Most polls show a majority of UCP voters support Alberta separating from Canada.
  • Environics and Angus Reid have released fresh polling about Albertans response to Smith’s separation referendum.
    • The Angus Reid survey found that 56 per cent of Albertans believe Smith is handling the issue poorly and 58 per cent believe she is calling the referendum to appease the separatists in her party.
    • Sixty-nine per cent of Albertans surveyed believe the separatists will never accept a no vote result in the referendum.

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Alberta Politics

NDP MLA Kyle Kasawski running for re-election in Sherwood Park

Sherwood Park NDP MLA Kyle Kasawski (source: Kyle Kasawski / Facebook)
Sherwood Park NDP MLA Kyle Kasawski (source: Kyle Kasawski / Facebook)

Danielle Smith’s Alberta separation referendum looms over party nominations for next election

MLA Kyle Kasawski was nominated to run for re-election in Sherwood Park by Alberta NDP members at a meeting last weekend in the large suburban hamlet east of Edmonton.

Kasawski currently serves as the opposition’s Affordability and Utilities critic role has been one of the strongest additions to the NDP opposition bench since 2023.

Kasawski has been vocal in his opposition to Alberta separatism and called on Premier Danielle Smith to speak out against foreign interference.

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Alberta Politics

Separatists are entrenched in Danielle Smith’s UCP and aren’t going away

The Alberta Prosperity Project’s Jeffrey Rath shows off the separatist group’s proposed referendum question in Calgary (source: Facebook).
The Alberta Prosperity Project’s Jeffrey Rath shows off the separatist group’s proposed referendum question in Calgary (source: Facebook).

Former conservative party premiers Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein would have told the separatists to pound dirt and wouldn’t have allowed them to dig themselves into their party like they have in the UCP.

The referendum will almost certainly further deepen the divide in conservative politics in this province along pro-Canada and pro-separation lines.

In her press conference today, Smith called for the losing side of this referendum to “accept the judgement of people and the direction that we go.”

That seems unlikely.

This referendum is guaranteed to string out this debate.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith shows her love for Canada by holding a separation referendum

Premier Danielle Smith and separatist leader Mitch Sylvestre at a UCP fundraising dinner in Bonnyville in May 2025 (source: Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul UCP / Facebook)
Premier Danielle Smith and separatist leader Mitch Sylvestre at a UCP fundraising dinner in Bonnyville in May 2025 (source: Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul UCP / Facebook)

Does it make any sense? No. But not much does in Alberta politics these days.

“Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”

That’s the referendum question that Premier Danielle Smith has decided to put on the 10th paper ballot that Albertans will be handed when they show up to vote on October 19, 2026.

Smith says the wordy multiple choice question was her only option because the court ruling quashing Elections Alberta’s approval of the separatist Stay Free Alberta citizen initiative petition ruled out a question where yes and no were the only answers.

Smith had an option to not hold the referendum at all but she opened this can of worms and it won’t easily be closed. The populist-turned-separatist-wing of the United Conservative Party that booted former premier Jason Kenney and then boosted Smith into the Premier’s Office is now firmly entrenched in the governing party — and they are not going away.

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Alberta Politics

Calgary-Shaw by-election race heats up as Rebecca Schulz expected to resign any day now

Calgary City Councillor Dan McLean announces his candidacy for the UCP nomination in Calgary-Shaw (source: Dan McLean / Facebook)
Calgary City Councillor Dan McLean announces his candidacy for the UCP nomination in Calgary-Shaw (source: Dan McLean / Facebook)

City Councillor Dan McLean, Mike Derry, and Stewart Jeanes running for UCP nomination

It was one of the worst kept secrets in Calgary political circles that City Councillor Dan McLean was planning to jump into provincial politics and he is now running for United Conservative Party nomination in Calgary-Shaw.

The southwest Calgary riding is expected to become vacant when UCP MLA Rebecca Schulz, who resigned from cabinet last December, steps down as an MLA. Schulz delivered a farewell statement in the Legislature last week and shared a video on social media thanking voters in the riding for choosing her to represent them for the past seven years.

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Alberta Politics

Can you tell me how to get. How to get to Forever Canadian Street.

Thomas Lukaszuk and Michael Janz unveil a mock-up of the proposed Forever Canadian Avenue street sign (source: Dave Cournoyer)
Thomas Lukaszuk and Michael Janz unveil a mock-up of the proposed Forever Canadian Avenue street sign (source: Dave Cournoyer)

🎶Can you tell me how to get. How to get to Forever Canadian Street.🎶

That might be a tune that children visiting Alberta’s provincial legislature for the first time will sing in years to come if an Edmonton City Councillor gets his wish.

City Councillor Michael Janz joined former Edmonton MLA Thomas Lukaszuk and supporters near the Alberta Legislature today to announce a proposal to rename a two-block stretch of 99th Avenue between 107 Street to 109 Street to Forever Canadian Avenue.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith will take the pipeline but won’t shelve the separatism talk

Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney speak at a joint press conference in Calgary on Friday, May 15, 2026.
Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney speak at a joint press conference in Calgary on Friday, May 15, 2026.

Will she just call a referendum anyway? Yes, probably.

Expect “We got Alberta a pipeline!” to be splashed all over UCP re-election ads in 2027.

But don’t expect the promise of an oil pipeline to dampen the enthusiasm of Alberta’s separation activists. That was demonstrated clearly last November when Smith was booed by delegates at the UCP AGM when she touted the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding about pipelines and electrification.

For them, it was never about building a pipeline.

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Alberta Politics

New report finds Russian and Trump-aligned online disinformation campaigns targeting Alberta

The Globe & Mail reports that a study being released this week by the Global Centre for Democratic Resilience has identified Russian and Trump-aligned websites and social-media accounts that are being created to inflame the separatism debate in Alberta:

“The danger is not the existence of that debate. The danger is that foreign governments, state-aligned media, ideological networks, and profit-driven manipulation systems are seeking to distort it,” the report concludes.

“When external actors amplify separatist narratives, normalize annexation, encourage national rupture, or undermine confidence in democratic processes, the issue is no longer only a matter of provincial politics. It becomes a direct threat to Canada’s democratic integrity, national security, and cognitive sovereignty.”

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Alberta Politics

Alberta separation policy resolution submitted for UCP AGM in November 2026

There is already a motion being proposed to adopt separatism as an official party policy at the UCP’s fall AGM.

A divisive policy debate about separatism was narrowly avoided by a vote by the UCP’s provincial board before separatist-endorsed candidates swept the majority of the party’s board positions at year’s AGM in Edmonton.

Emmott Kelsey of the Centurion Project is a UCP member and has submitted a policy resolution for debate at the UCP AGM that would officially endorse Alberta leaving Canada.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith makes her Alberta separatist problem our provincial problem

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks to the Canada Strong and Free Conference in Ottawa on May 8, 2026 (source: Canada Strong and Free Network / Facebook)
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks to the Canada Strong and Free Conference in Ottawa on May 8, 2026 (source: Canada Strong and Free Network / Facebook)

Jen Gerson penned an excellent op-ed in the Globe & Mail arguing that the biggest privacy breach of personal information in Alberta’s history presents Smith with a perfect opportunity to sever her party’s separatist wing (92 per cent of Alberta separatists are UCP supporters). Gerson is right that it is an opening for Smith but it might be politically impossible without tearing the UCP apart — something Smith won’t want to do.

Gerson argued forcefully on Ryan Jespersen’s Real Talk that Smith is making her political problem our provincial problem.

Many of the UCP’s most enthusiastic political activists, the ones who show up to constituency meetings and policy conventions, have also spent the past three months collecting signatures for the Stay Free Alberta citizen initiative to force a referendum on Alberta’s independence from Canada.

Many of those same activists cut their political teeth organizing opposition to COVID-19 public health measures and vaccinations, and embrace and promote the deep well of online conspiracy theories associated with that movement.

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Alberta Politics

Alberta separatists are entrenched in the United Conservative Party

An AI-generated image shared by the anonymous separatist Rise of Alberta social media account (source: @riseofalberta / Instagram)
An AI-generated image shared by the anonymous separatist Rise of Alberta social media account (source: @riseofalberta / Instagram)

Pro-Canada Conservatives need to speak up now before it’s too late

Premier Danielle Smith deflected criticism about a senior United Conservative Party Caucus staffer attending an online meeting of the separatist Centurion Project by blaming Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi for not telling her about the separatist group’s use of a leaked voter list.

Nenshi has been taking daily swings at the UCP all week starting with claims that party president Rob Smith and Caucus Director of Stakeholder Relations Arundeep Sandhu attended the Centurion Project meeting where former premier Jason Kenney’s home address was shown in a demonstration of the separatist group’s app.

The UCP denied that the party president was at the meeting but admitted Sandhu logged into the zoom call.

Nenshi says he notified Kenney and the RCMP of the privacy breach and that the presence of Smith’s senior staffer means she can’t claim she didn’t know that the voters list had been leaked.

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Alberta Politics

Largest privacy breach of personal information in Alberta’s history

Alberta’s Legislature Building through the view of a broken glass panel in summer 2025 (credit: Dave Cournoyer)
Alberta’s Legislature Building through the view of a broken glass panel in summer 2025 (credit: Dave Cournoyer)

Separatist Centurion Project somehow got access to the 2.9 million names on the official voters list and uploaded it to a public, searchable database

It has been a while since my phone buzzed with so many questions from political contacts and non-political friends than it did this past weekend.

“Did the voters list get leaked!?” “What does it mean?” “Who has my personal contact information”?” “Did the separatists cheat?” “Does this mean Trump and the Russians have the Alberta voters list?” “How did this happen?” “What’s going to happen now?”

Those are all legitimate questions that will be asked again and again as we start learn more about how a separatist group calling itself the Centurion Project got access to Elections Alberta’s official voters list and uploaded the full names, home addresses and phone numbers of 2.9 million Alberta voters to a public, searchable database. The group is led by well-known right-wing organizer David Parker of Take Back Alberta fame.

Though it remains unclear how exactly Parker’s group got the list, Elections Alberta identified the voters list as one that was provided to the separatist Republican Party last year. The Republican Party is led by well-known right-wing political organizer Cameron Davies of Kamikaze campaign fame.

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Alberta Politics

“I’m the guardian of the Canada Health Act,” says federal health minister Marjorie Michel

Federal Minister of Health Marjorie Michel (source: Marjorie Michel / Facebook)
Federal Minister of Health Marjorie Michel (source: Marjorie Michel / Facebook)

The National Post’s Rahim Mohamed reports that federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel admitted to speaking with Alberta’s Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services Adriana LaGrange about Bill 11 earlier this month.

LaGrange is the senior of Alberta’s four health ministers who were named following the province’s dismembering of the Alberta Health Services province-wide health authority in 2024. She introduced Bill 11 into the Legislature last year.

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Alberta Politics

Will Mark Carney push back against Alberta’s health care privatization agenda?

Prime Minister Mark Carney (source: Mark Carney / Facebook)
Prime Minister Mark Carney (source: Mark Carney / Facebook)

Alberta separatism, referendums, library book bans, and gerrymandering are catching a lot of the headlines these days but a law passed by Alberta’s United Conservative Party government that allows for more private-for-profit health care is becoming harder for the federal government in Ottawa to ignore.

Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (No. 2), known as Bill 11 when it was passed through the Legislature last December, would allow physicians working in Alberta to practice medicine in both the public system and in private-for-profit businesses, something that isn’t allowed anywhere else in Canada.

Premier Danielle Smith’s push toward privatization of the public health care system, which UCP defends as “European style” health care, is almost certainly more American-inspired. But wherever the inspiration comes from, it will almost certainly mean more out of pocket expenses for Albertans — something Smith has long advocated for — and more public funds subsidizing private companies.

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