Tag: Jason Kenney

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Alberta Politics

UCP President Rob Smith rebukes calls to purge party’s separatist wing

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)

United Conservative Party president Rob Smith took to Facebook to rebuke calls to purge the governing party of its separatist wing if Albertans overwhelmingly vote to remain in Canada on October 19.

Smith’s comments were aimed at former party leader Jason Kenney, who said earlier this week that the UCP should reaffirm its federalist position and separatists should leave to form their own party.

“There’s no doubt that those folks have infiltrated (the party),” Kenney said at an Edmonton Chamber of Commerce luncheon. “They’re welcome to participate in democracy, but if their primary goal is separation, then they have to do it in a separatist party,” he said.

“You’re either for Canada, national unity, or you’re not, and if you’re still a citizen, you’re welcome to be involved in democracy. Go and do that in a separatist party,” Kenney said.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

Nenshi’s NDP delivers final pre-referendum pitch, turns to GOTV ahead of October 19

Former premier Rachel Notley spoke to a crowd at the Alberta NDP’s final Vote to Save Canada rally in Edmonton (screenshot: Alberta NDP / YouTube)
Former premier Rachel Notley spoke to a crowd at the Alberta NDP’s final Vote to Save Canada rally in Edmonton (screenshot: Alberta NDP / YouTube)
4-days until Referendum Day in Alberta

Edmonton has been an Alberta NDP stronghold for the last decade as city voters have shown up in droves to vote orange, so it was appropriate that the party ended its province-wide Vote to Save Canada rally tour last night in the provincial capital.

With four days left until the Referendum Day on October 19, NDP leader Naheed Nenshi was joined by former premier Rachel Notley at the rally at the Polish Hall in the centre of the city.

Notley led the NDP from 2014 to 2024 and served as Premier of Alberta from 2015 to 2019 and she remains a popular figure among NDP supporters. After stepping down as the MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona in 2024, she has reemerged into the spotlight to oppose separatism and the immigration questions on the referendum ballot.

“We have a job to do and that is to get people out to vote,” Notley said to a large crowd at the Polish Hall in Edmonton as she turned her criticism to Premier Danielle Smith.

Read the full column on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

The Alberta-British Columbia election connection

It wouldn’t be an election in British Columbia if there weren’t people with Alberta connections involved.

Miriam Rycroft is the NDP candidate in the Kelowna-Mission riding in the Okanagan region of BC. Rycroft was a ministerial chief of staff during the Alberta NDP’s time in government and worked as Director of Tour and Scheduling in Premier Rachel Notley’s office. She was President of the Edmonton-Glenora NDP constituency association in 2024.

Politicos with prominent Alberta ties are leading the different parties campaigns.

  • BC NDP campaign chair Cheryl Oates was Executive Director of Communications and Planning for Premier Notley from 2015 to 2019 and worked as communications director for the NDP caucus during the its final years as a 4 MLA opposition.
  • BC Conservative Party campaign manager Katy Merrifield worked as communications director in Premier Jason Kenney’s office and was later the Executive Director of Communications and Engagement for the Alberta government’s Canadian Centre for Recovery Excellence.
  • BC Green Party communications chair Mike Hudema was a prominent environmental activist in Alberta in the 2000s, ran for the Alberta NDP in Edmonton-Meadowlark in the 2001 provincial election, and was elected president of the University of Alberta Students’ Union in 2002.
  • OneBC Party communications director Wyatt Claypool is currently running for the UCP nomination in Calgary-Currie and was a candidate for the federal Conservative nomination in Calgary Signal Hill in 2022.

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Alberta Politics

Rewind: Danielle Smith’s Alberta Sovereignty Act is all about creating a political crisis

Danielle Smith and Rob Anderson in 2010 (source: Dave Cournoyer)
Danielle Smith and Rob Anderson in 2010 (source: Dave Cournoyer)

So much about what is happening in Alberta right now can be traced back to the Free Alberta Strategy

I’m working on a few new columns and a book review that I am hoping to publish soon, so I thought I’d share a piece I wrote that I keep coming back to as I write about what’s happening in Alberta politics today. In fact, it’s the very first column I published on Substack when I shifted Daveberta to this platform in September 2022.

So much about what is happening in Alberta right now, days ahead of the October 19 separation referendum, can be traced back to the Free Alberta Strategy that Danielle Smith promoted before and during her campaign for the United Conservative Party leadership in 2022.

Here’s my column from September 29, 2022.

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Alberta Politics

Alberta’s separation referendum and the law of unintended consequences

Jason Kenney accepting the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party in March 2017
Jason Kenney accepting the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party in March 2017

Politics makes strange bedfellows. It’s amazing how much can change in 10 years.

I was recently reminded that it was only 10 years ago that Jason Kenney was campaigning for the leadership of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party. With everything that has happened in Alberta politics since then, it feels like it might as well have been 20 years ago.

The longtime Calgary MP and former federal cabinet minister set his sights on “uniting the right” after the PC Party’s 43-year long streak as govermment was ended in spectacular fashion by Rachel Notley’s Alberta NDP in the 2015 election.

The PC Party’s loss and the NDP’s win was a shock to Alberta’s political system.

Decades of one-party dominance in Alberta (that even preceded the PCs) created a system centered around a PC Party with a big tent that spanned the political spectrum. The PC Party’s survival instincts and electoral success were matched only by the Liberal Party of Canada — another natural governing party that adapted and recreated itself again and again over the last century to get in front of the parade of public opinion.

And it worked like a charm for four decades.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

Alberta Foundation for the Arts chair Cynthia Moore running for Calgary-Elbow UCP nomination

Premier Danielle Smith and Cynthia Moore in 2025 (source: Cynthia P. Moore / Facebook)
Premier Danielle Smith and Cynthia Moore in 2025 (source: Cynthia P. Moore / Facebook)

Former United Conservative Party president Cynthia Moore has launched her campaign for her party’s nomination in the Calgary-Elbow riding in the next provincial election.

Moore currently serves as chair of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, a role she was appointed to by the UCP government in 2024, and as chair of the Real Estate Council of Alberta. She previously worked as an executive of the Kahanoff Foundation.

Moore was UCP president from 2021 until 2023 — a tumultuous time in the governing party’s history that saw rank and file members revolt against Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership and rocket Danielle Smith into the Premier’s Office.

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Alberta Politics

Tracking who’s who in the Alberta separation referendum debate

An appropriate Alberta-themed decal on a hotel elevator in Ottawa (Source: Dave Cournoyer)
An appropriate Alberta-themed decal on a hotel elevator in Ottawa (Source: Dave Cournoyer)

A list of pro-Canada and Alberta independence supporters in the October 19, 2026 referendum

Albertans are being asked to vote on ten referendum questions on October 19, 2026 and, unsurprisingly, the one question attracting the most attention is about Alberta’s separation from Canada.

I am a proud Canadian and proud Albertan and will be voting for Alberta to remain in Canada in this referendum.

One of my key goals since launching Daveberta more than two decades ago has been to help Albertans better understand the politics of their province. So, in the months ahead, I will be writing a lot about the referendum questions and maintaining a running list of groups, politicians, and individuals who are campaigning or taken positions in the Alberta separation referendum debate.

Similar to my nomination candidate tracking list, I will be updating this page as I receive new names, so please click on the title link and bookmark it to keep up to date.

If there are any names or website links that should be added or removed from this list, please send me an email at david.cournoyer@gmail.com. I am striving to do my best to keep this list as accurate as possible during a very noisy political debate.

Follow the list on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

Albertans give Danielle Smith a failing grade on separatism but would probably re-elect the UCP anyway

Danielle Smith speaking at the United Conservative Party Leaders Dinner in Calgary in 2026 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)
Danielle Smith speaking at the United Conservative Party Leaders Dinner in Calgary in 2026 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

Only two Alberta premiers have finished a full term in office since the beginning of the 21st century.

Ralph Klein completed his third full-term as a Progressive Conservative premier from 2001 to 2004 and Rachel Notley led the New Democratic Party through the entirety of its historic one-term as government from 2015 to 2019 (Notley’s also defied historical expectations by leading her party to a near comeback in 2023).

Aside from Klein and Notley, the Premier’s Office has been a rotating door of short-term tenants who were forced out after election defeats, scandals, caucus and cabinet revolts, and raucous party memberships (the exception being Premier Dave Hancock, who served in the role for the six months between Alison Redford’s resignation and Jim Prentice’s win in the 2014 PC Party leadership race).

So the question on the minds of many political watchers today is whether the current occupant of the Premier’s Office, Danielle Smith, can survive a full-term in office to lead her party into the next election?

A month ago, I would have said absolutely and even today I would say probably, but Smith is now finding herself on increasingly shakier political ground after deciding to call a province-wide referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

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Water Not Coal with Corb Lund

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As the Water Not Coal citizen initiative enters its final week, country music singer-songwriter and rancher Corb Lund joined the Daveberta Podcast to explain why it’s important for Albertans to sign the petition to block new coal mining projects, like Grassy Mountain, from opening in the Eastern Slopes of the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

The Water Not Coal campaign needs to submit more than 177,732 signatures to Elections Alberta in order to force the Alberta government to respond to the following statement through a vote by MLAs in the Legislature or a province-wide referendum:

“The Government of Alberta shall prohibit through legislation all coal exploration and mining activities within the Eastern Slopes of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, other than mines that are in actual production as of January 1, 2026. For clarity, this prohibition includes Northback Holdings’ Grassy Mountain Project and Valory Resources’ Blackstone Project as well as any projects to expand any producing mines.”

Ranchers, farmers, landowners, residents of communities downstream of the Eastern Slopes, and Albertans across the province are concerned about the impact of large industrial coal mines on the fresh water that flows from the Rocky Mountains.

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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.

Read a lot more on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

Won’t a new pipeline make the Alberta separatists happy?

Smith used the threat of national unity crisis to leverage the approval of a new pipeline to the Pacific Coast, and it looks like she just might get that. So this is a political win for Smith — especially because the September 1, 2027 target for the start of construction of a new pipeline lines up with the start of the next provincial general election campaign.

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

Nenshi wants to avoid Brexit mistakes in fight against Alberta separatists

Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi launched the For Alberta For Canada campaign (source: Naheed Nenshi / YouTube)
Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi launched the For Alberta For Canada campaign (source: Naheed Nenshi / YouTube)

“Our country is not perfect, but it’s the best place in the world, and Albertans are ready to fight for Canada,” Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi said as he launched his party’s For Alberta For Canada campaign in anticipation of an expected referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada.

“Every day, Albertans ask me one simple question about separatism: ‘what can I do?’ This new campaign is an answer to that—giving everyday people the tools and the power they need to stand up for our country.

They know that if Alberta separates, we’ll lose so much. Even the threat of a referendum is already damaging our economy and creating chaos and uncertainty. Today we are giving Albertans the tools to take action and be ready for this fall.”

The NDP campaign will kick off with a province-wide door-knocking day of action on April 25, which Nenshi says aims to attract pro-Canadian Albertans beyond NDP voters.

“We’re not repeating the mistake of the people who thought Brexit would never pass. We’re getting out there now,” Nenshi told reporters. “We’re not sleepwalking into this.”

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Alberta Politics

Alberta’s Separation Referendum — Who’s Going to Stand Up for Canada?

An Alberta politics deep dive on Craft Politics (originally published on the Daveberta Substack)

I recently joined Joseph Lavoie and Andrew Percy on Craft Politics for a deep dive discussion about Alberta separatism and how it’s shaping Alberta politics in 2026.

We had a broad-ranging discussion about Alberta politics, the current separatist movement’s roots in the COVID-19 pandemic and how its supporters became key players inside the United Conservative Party, and who might lead the pro-Canada campaign in a possible separation referendum later this year.

We covered a lot of ground in this discussion but I’m remiss for going through the list players in the separatism debate without mentioning the role of First Nations communities and the Treaties signed between First Nations and the Crown. That’s another important layer to this political debate.

Thank you to Joseph and Andrew for inviting me on their podcast. Be sure to subscribe to Craft Politics on your podcast listening app of choice or watch their interviews on YouTube.

Alberta Belongs in Canada

I will be joining Edmonton Strathcona MP Heather McPherson and other guests on Sunday, February 15 for an online discussion about Alberta’s role in Canada at her Alberta Belongs In Canada event. McPherson is running for the leadership of the New Democratic Party of Canada.

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Alberta Politics

Nenshi’s NDP starts nominating candidates for next Alberta election

Edmonton-Glenora MLA Sarah Hoffman and NDP leader Naheed Nenshi (source: Sarah Hoffman / Instagram)
Edmonton-Glenora MLA Sarah Hoffman and NDP leader Naheed Nenshi (source: Sarah Hoffman / Instagram)

Early March candidate meetings scheduled in Calgary and Edmonton ridings

With rumours of an early provincial election circulating since last year, the Alberta NDP looks like it will be the first political party out of the gate to nominate candidates ahead of the next vote.

The NDP website lists candidate nomination meetings scheduled in Edmonton-Glenora on March 3, Calgary-Elbow on March 4, Calgary-Klein on March 5, Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview on March 6 and Calgary-Edgemont on March 7.

All five of these ridings are represented by NDP MLAs who will be seeking re-election if they secure their party’s nominations.

Longtime Daveberta readers will know that I am keenly interested in tracking candidate nominations ahead of provincial and federal elections in Alberta, so I am pleased to share with you that I am continuing this tradition as we approach the next election.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

Who’s going to stand up for Canada in Alberta’s separation referendum?

Alberta separatist leaders Dr. Dennis Modry (left) and Mitch Sylvestre (right) with Premier Danielle Smith (centre) at the UCP fundraising dinner in Bonnyville in May 2025 (source: Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul UCP / Facebook)
Alberta separatist leaders Dr. Dennis Modry (left) and Mitch Sylvestre (right) with Premier Danielle Smith (centre) at the UCP fundraising dinner in Bonnyville in May 2025 (source: Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul UCP / Facebook)

The time to stand up for a Strong Alberta within a Strong Canada is now.

It’s still unclear who will lead the pro-Canada side in a referendum campaign that could happen as early as fall of this year. This is likely because a lot of prominent supporters of federalism in Alberta have had a hard time believing Albertans would vote in favour of separation or that a referendum will even be held in the first place.

Polls show support for Alberta leaving Canada sits at around 28 per cent and drops to 15 per cent when people are faced with the possible consequences, but this is not the time for Albertans who also count themselves as proud Canadians to be complacent.

In another time, the Premier of Alberta would be a strong voice against separatism, but Danielle Smith is now leading a party with an activist base deeply engaged in the separatist movement and she is not interested in upsetting that base of supporters.

Read more on the Daveberta Substack

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