Tag: Western Separation

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

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date February 14, 2026

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.

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

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date February 6, 2026

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.

Coming soon: A referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date February 5, 2026

If Albertans aren’t sent to the polls to vote in a provincial election in 2026 they will almost certainly be asked to vote in a province-wide referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada.

Former Progressive Conservative MLA Thomas Lukaszuk was the first to spear-head a successful citizen initiative petition when his Forever Canadian campaign collected more than 456,000 signatures by asking Albertans if they wanted their province to remain in Canada.

The wildly successful Forever Canadian petition campaign is being countered by the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project’s flipped citizen initiative question asking Albertans if they want to leave Canada.

Alberta separatism the biggest and most dangerous distraction of the year

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date December 21, 2025

The biggest distraction of the year is the fight over Alberta staying in Canada.

Premier Danielle Smith is walking a narrow line between Albertans who want a better deal with Ottawa and those who just want Alberta to outright leave Canada (or join the United States), though she has actively tipped the scales in favour of the separatists in her party.

The UCP has twice amended the Citizen Initiative Act this year. First to lower the number of signatures required to trigger a province-wide referendum and second to block the Chief Elections Officer from referring initiative questions to the courts to determine their constitutionality.

Alberta has long had a fringe separatist movement that has usually lived on the margins of the far-right, but today’s separatists are a deeply intrenched and active force inside Smith’s UCP. They showed their strength at the recent UCP AGM when Smith was booed after trumpeting her government’s memorandum of understanding about pipelines and the electrical grid with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government in Ottawa.

4 ways Danielle Smith’s UCP could react to the Forever Canadian citizen initiative

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date December 2, 2025

Has Thomas Lukaszuk’s pro-Canada petition boxed in Danielle Smith on Alberta separatism?

If there is one big takeaway from last weekend’s United Conservative Party annual general meeting it’s that the separatist movement in Alberta is deeply intrenched in the governing party.

From jeers and cheers to at least half the board candidates endorsed by the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project getting elected, the weekend gathering was a showcase of how influential Alberta’s most prominent separatists are in Premier Danielle Smith‘s UCP.

Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith hopes pipeline deal with Mark Carney will quell separatist sentiments

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date November 29, 2025

Premier Danielle Smith will be able to walk into the United Conservative Party AGM this weekend triumphant about her pipeline deal with Prime Minister Mark Carney, and maybe even confident enough to consider calling an early provincial election in 2026, but she may get more jeers than cheers from some sections of her party who will be unhappy she was willing to have truck and trade with Carney (though I can guarantee that Steven Guilbeault’s resignation will get cheers).

“Danielle wanted lapdogs,” says influential separatist Jeffrey Rath

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date November 29, 2025

According to influential separatist Jeffrey Rath, one of the main spokespeople for the Alberta Prosperity Project, the UCP board of directors is to blame for blocking a separation debate at the AGM. Rath has openly criticized incumbent UCP President Rob Smith for casting the deciding vote against holding a debate about Alberta independence. A debate and vote on Alberta’s separation from Canada could have received overwhelming support from AGM delegates — making the UCP an official separatist party.

Separatists accuse Danielle Smith of purging UCP board

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date November 10, 2025

The United Conservative Party’s board elections are happening at its AGM at the end of November and the rhetoric is heating up from the party’s bustling separatist wing.

Alberta Prosperity Project co-founder Jeffrey Rath took to the internet to accuse “Danielle Smith’s Death Star team” of abusing their access to party membership lists to purge the party board of separatists.

Alberta separatists march on the Legislature and UCP AGM

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 25, 2025

The steps of the Legislature are a busy place this week as supporters of Alberta separatism are promising a large pro-independence rally on October 25. The rally will feature speakers from the Alberta Prosperity Project including Jeffrey Rath, Dennis Modry and Mitch Sylvestre, restaurant owner, podcaster and COVID-19 restrictions opponent Chris Scott, and former UCP nomination candidate Tanya Clemens.

Describing the rally as the first battle in the fight for an independent Alberta, Sylvestre told separatist supporters in a rambling video posted by the APP yesterday that “before we have to pay in blood we have to pay in time because Communism always comes in on a promise and leaves with a bullet.”

Sylvestre is the president of the UCP constituency association in the Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul riding and is the proponent of the court-delayed citizen initiative to hold a province-wide referendum asking the question “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?”

Get ready for a big fight over Alberta’s separation referendum

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date July 31, 2025

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Justice Minister Mickey Amery in April 2025 announcing changes to Alberta’s citizen initiative referendums (Photo: Government of Alberta/Flickr).

It’s going to be messy but the Chief Electoral Officer needs to hold his ground – and his independence.

Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer was publicly rebuked by Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Justice Mickey Amery after a petition aimed at triggering a province-wide referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada was referred to the courts to determine if it is legal.

Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure announced earlier this week that a citizen initiative petition request submitted by separatist Alberta Prosperity Project CEO Mitch Sylvestre was being referred to the Court of King’s Bench to determine whether it conforms with the requirements of sections 2 (4) of the Citizen Initiative Act. That section specifically states that “an initiative petition proposal must not contravene sections 1 to 35.1 of the Constitution Act, 1982.”

Smith and Amery took to social media to call on McClure to withdraw the court reference and allow the Alberta separation petition to move forward.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack

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Tags Alberta Chief Electoral Officer, Alberta NDP, Alberta Next Panel, Alberta Politics Substack, Alberta Prosperity Project, Alberta Separation Referendum, Alberta Separatism, Andy Sims, Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, Canada Election Substack, Commonwealth of Alberta Delegation to Washington, Danielle Smith, Daveberta Substack, Dennis Modry, Elections Alberta, Elections Alberta Financial Disclosures, Forever Canadian, Gordon McClure, Jason Stephan, Jeff Rath, Jeffrey Rath, Ken Chapman, King Charles III, Mark Carney, Mickey Amery, Mitch Sylvestre, Money and Politics, Naheed Nenshi, Rakhi Pancholi, Red Deer-South, Scott Cyr, Subst, Thomas Luksazuk, United Conservative Party, Vladimir Putin, Western Alienation, Western Separation

Alberta Politics

Separation looms large among rural conservatives in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills by-election

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date June 26, 2025

This week’s by-elections were as clear an indication as any that the divisive debate over Alberta’s separation from Canada is mostly an issue among rural conservatives in and outside of Smith’s UCP.

UCP candidate Tara Sawyer won the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills riding with 61 percent, a drop of 14 points from the 2023 election, and most of that vote appears to have gone to the right-wing separatist Republican Party.

The Republicans had hoped their party leader, Cam Davies, could pull off a win inspired by separatist Gordon Kesler’s win in Olds-Didsbury in 1982 but when the votes were counted he placed third with 17 percent behind NDP candidate Bev Toews, who placed second with 20 percent.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack

Tags Alberta NDP, Alberta Politics Substack, Alberta Separation Referendum, Alberta Separatism, Bev Toews, Cameron Davies, Canada Election Substack, Daveberta Substack, Gordon Kesler, Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills by-election, Republican Party of Alberta, Tara Sawyer, United Conservative Party, Western Alientation, Western Canada Concept, Western Separation

Alberta Politics

Naheed Nenshi’s NDP win Edmonton-Ellerslie and Edmonton-Strathcona by-elections

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date June 24, 2025

NDP leader Naheed Nenshi shares a stage with NDP MLAs at his by-election victory party on June 23, 2025 (source: Alberta NDP / YouTube)

UCP wins Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills but fails to make gains in Edmonton

The ballots have been counted in the provincial by-elections held yesterday and the results are: Status quo ante bellum.

Naheed Nenshi’s NDP held suburban Edmonton-Ellerslie and urban Edmonton-Strathcona, and Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party held rural Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills.

Where is Nenshi? Should we take the separatists seriously?

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date June 18, 2025

The Alberta Legislature Building in Edmonton (credit: Dave Cournoyer)

Big questions about Alberta politics on The Line Podcast

Any day I get to talk about Alberta politics is a good day, so I was thrilled to join freelance writer and The Line co-founder Jen Gerson on the latest episode of the The Line Podcast to talk about what’s happening in Alberta politics.

In the hour and ten minute long discussion, we dove into the growing undercurrent of separatist sentiment inside the United Conservative Party, the burgeoning Dodgy Contracts Scandal dogging Premier Danielle Smith’s government, the upcoming by-elections in Edmonton-Ellerslie, Edmonton-Strathcona and Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, and a big question many political watchers have been asking: where is NDP leader Naheed Nenshi?

Listen to the episode on The Line or find it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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Alberta Politics

Upcoming by-elections in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, Edmonton-Ellerslie and Edmonton-Strathcona

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date May 26, 2025

The Alberta NDP are scheduled to nominate a candidate in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills by-election on June 14, but rumours are circulating that Premier Danielle Smith could call that by-election along with two others in Edmonton-Ellerslie and Edmonton-Strathcona very soon.

The UCP announced last week that Alberta Grains chairperson Tara Sawyer had been appointed as the party’s candidate in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills. Sawyer’s appointment happened without an open nomination race, which is likely an indication the UCP was concerned a pro-separatist candidate could possibly create a messy nomination contest in that rural central Alberta riding.

Read more on the Daveberta Substack

Alberta Politics

Redrawing Alberta’s electoral map

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date May 22, 2025

Voters only getting 2 more MLAs despite huge population boom

Alberta will have a new electoral map when the next provincial election is called. An Electoral Boundaries Commission has been named and will begin travelling the province next week to collect feedback from Albertans about how new riding boundaries should be drawn to reflect population changes since the last time the map was redrawn in 2017.

Alberta Belongs in Canada

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