Could Alberta trigger Canada’s Brexit moment? | The Take

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Today, what's behind the separatist movement gaining momentum in Canada?

[00:00:05]>> Alberta's future will be decided by Albertans.

[00:00:08]>> It will be the first time a province outside Quebec has put the question of separation to voters.

[00:00:13]>> Prime Minister Mark Carney says Alberta's referendum push risks becoming Canada's own Brexit moment. So, how serious is this movement really? I'm Tamara Kondukar and this is the take.

[00:00:31]I'm Jason Marosoff. I'm a writer and producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and I work in Calgary, Alberta.

[00:00:38]>> Jason, welcome to the Take. It's It's really nice to have a fellow Canadian on the show.

[00:00:43]>> Great to be here and great to see you, Tamara.

[00:00:45]>> Great to see you, too. Um, so I don't think it's it's controversial to say that politically Canada is not the most exciting country in the world, but we do have our moments. And I think we're kind of in the middle of one right now. And that's because of what's going on in Alberta, our oilrich province in the West, where what used to be kind of a fringe separatist movement, has forced its way onto the national agenda. The president of Alberta's United Conservative Party says he believes a substantial number of its members would support Alberta leaving Canada. The party president says the premier's move to put the question on October's referendum ballot will help satisfy the separatists.

[00:01:25]>> Now, talk of Alberta separating has been around for decades, and we'll get into all of that later, but just bring us up to speed. Why are we suddenly talking about this? and maybe take us from the the petition to the announcement of this vote.

[00:01:41]>> This movement has a long history as you suggested um ever since Alberta was rocky in the late 40s. Uh that became a big uh touch point. It was basically became the wealthiest province uh you know almost the Saudi Arabia of uh of Canada or the Texas of Canada. People often call it Texas North. Over the last 10, 11 years under the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, uh Alberta got really frustrated. Uh especially as Justin Trudeau was pushing forth a lot of climate change policies uh that Albertans, a lot of Alberta conservatives, a lot of oil producers thought was a big threat to their their wealth. As Liberals got to got to stay longer and as they won another election this past year, uh that seemed to tip even higher. uh we started seeing some uh some polls showing that separatism sentiment was in the low30s which is a little bit higher than uh than kind of the baseline typical level of disaection and then what happened was you have this premier of Alberta Danielle Smith quite a populist premier more populist than anybody we've had for nearly a century and a lot of the people who were in this disaffected movement uh a lot of them motivated by separatist sentiment a lot of them originally coming from the co uh pandemic they had really helped her become Remier and so she's listened to them a lot. She made it a lot easier to uh to get a California style citizens initiative uh to a referendum or to a vote. Uh she slashed the uh the requirement from uh 600,000 people in this 5 million person province to less than 200,000 people. Now uh they put forward this petition just earlier this month. uh it was blocked in court for various reasons. But knowing that this is a big part of her base and a big clamor within cons among conservatives within her province, she's gone ahead and asked a form of question. This is not a straight yes or no, leave or stay question that is going to be put forth to Albertans on October 19th in a referendum. The question is, do you want Alberta to A remain in Canada as a province or B start a legal process toward having a binding referendum on separation at some point in the future?

[00:03:54]That's option B. And it really struck me that this is putting Alberta on the map in a new and strange way. I mean, Tamara, you think about what people know Alberta for globally.

[00:04:05]>> It's probably oil.

[00:04:07]>> Yeah. Maybe the Calgary Stampede, the big rodeo festival we have in July, >> BA, the beautiful mountain resorts we have in the Rockies.

[00:04:16]>> And now, >> I mean, here we are talking. This is now going to give become one of Alberta's big global calling cards and really >> tell the world that Canada >> could be broken apart.

[00:04:29]>> Yeah, it it's really really wild. So to be clear, even though the court struck down this petition, um Alberta's premier Daniel Smith, she decided that there is going to be this this vote in October 2026. And the referendum question is is really confusing. Like you said, it's not actually should Alberta leave Canada. It's about whether there should be a second vote to to decide that. And why exactly did she do this? Does she want Alberta to leave Canada or what's her position on this? That's the interesting thing about this. Normally, when somebody launches a referendum to stay or leave a leave your your country, it's because they want to. Danielle Smith declares up and down that she believes in a united Canada, a stronger Alberta with more provincial rights, but a United Canada.

[00:05:19]But here's the thing, her base, her political base is largely in favor of separatism. Her official reason for this is that there is a clamor among people.

[00:05:29]She respects direct democracy. She wants pe people wants people to have their voice. So, while she legally cannot right now put a straight leave or stay question, she wants to do an end run around this court ruling that came down a few weeks ago and put forth this two-part sort of two-part stage referendum, a referendum to have a referendum. The separatists aren't very thrilled with this, but it's what they get, I suppose. and a lot of the rest of the province, majority of which supports stinging Canada, is very frustrated that we're having this very divisive vote at all.

[00:06:02]>> You talked earlier about uh what Canada or what Alberta is known for around the globe, you know, oil being being one of those things. Um could you maybe just explain Alberta to people who don't know anything about Canada? What's sort of the defining dynamic between this this province and the rest of of the country?

[00:06:21]So Alberta is the second most western province in Canada. Economically, we're the kind of economic engine. We produce the biggest export product in Alberta or in Canada, which is oil. Uh we have these big things called the oil sands or some people uh more critically call them the tar sands. That's basically made Alberta the wealthiest, most affluent uh province within Canada and also made it a big target for climate change activists. And then that that in and of itself causes a lot of the tension that we're seeing in the uh in this separatist debate.

[00:06:53]>> Yeah. So so then coming back to the movement, who are the people who are driving this and what why do they want Alberta to leave Canada? What are their grievances with with the arrangement right now?

[00:07:04]>> It's a very conservative movement and it comes with a a bundle of different problems. There's no one major major reason that people want to leave. Uh for some people it's economic that Alberta could be much more affluent if it didn't have to help support with transfer payments and uh equalization support uh lesser affluent provinces especially those in the east uh Quebec >> meaning like money to other parts of >> basically Albertans pay higher taxes Alberta produces a lot of tax wealth in income and corporate tax and that doesn't all go back to Alberta. There are people who think that Alberta would be much better off uh economically if they didn't have to pull out the other provinces or financially support other provinces. Uh some of it is based on uh immigration frustrations. Other people are frustrated with gun laws or uh medical rules around uh doctor assisted uh suicide or death. Some are just think that Alberta could be its own more conservative utopia if uh if they left.

[00:08:07]>> Right. So, so this is not just about the economy. It's it's kind of like a a culture. It's become a culture identity issue. Cuz what's interesting is some of the grievances that Alberta's had with the Liberals, Mark Carney has tried to address those. He has scrapped Trudeau era climate restrictions on Alberta's oil sector. He's dropped the emissions cap. He's committed to supporting a new pipeline. All of these things that Alberta's been asking for. Um and you know the the polling suggests that there isn't a lot of support for this even sec second referendum. Um but still like 300,000 signatures that that's a lot of people. I mean it's no joke. So I guess I'm wondering why hasn't the carne government's efforts to work more with Alberta why hasn't that lowered the temperature? This is the irony of this all uh like in the last year uh Alberta has been dealing with the federal government that's given it a lot of what it wants but two things have happened at once. One is that sentiment against the former prime minister Trudeau were so hot uh that and Carney is from the same Liberal party that people are very cynical about whether any liberals or any Ottawa government can really be responsive to Alberta's needs. Danielle Smith, the premier, gave them something to do with that energy. And Danielle Smith seems politically aware that if they don't get to vote on something, if they don't get to campaign toward their own cause, they might turn the political attentions elsewhere in taking over her United Conservative Party and maybe dumping her as her predecessor.

[00:09:48]>> H wow. Okay. So, they have this outlet where they can channel all of their their frustrations um that has been acknowledged by Daniel Smith. And so, so what is the actual pitch here? What's the vision of Alberta that they're selling to people?

[00:10:02]>> They're sketching a really utopian Alberta that is affluent. So affluent that it doesn't need to charge income tax on citizens. Uh they are talking about a very different immigration policy. Um maybe something akin to an ICE style or Trump style deportation or strict limitation >> program. uh they expect it to be one that where oil is produced at a much greater clip that there there are major expansions in the oil sands and in the natural gas sector. uh they envision something with its own military. But the one of the challenging things about this vision is that normally uh it with a leave program uh it's up to the the government is leading it and the government puts forth their vision. And here you have >> Danielle Smith, the premier of the province of Alberta, uh not with her own vision. In fact, she's saying that she's going to support continuously support the stay campaign. Uh it'll be curious to see what the other argument is, what the stay argument is. You'll see a lot of uh national liberals and conservatives alike, national conservatives don't support this project, including the conservative federal leader Pierre Paul. We're going to see a really interesting display of patriotism uh in this country coming up.

[00:11:20]>> Yeah, that that it's definitely going to be really interesting to see. Just going back to this this vision of the leave movement. Um it's really striking how much this sounds like it's influenced by the right-wing movement in the US because this is all happening sort of not too long after Trump started openly talking about Canada as the 51st state and he upended this long-standing relationship that these two countries have had for so long. Um, and recently I read that there have been reports of meetings between uh separatists from Alberta and officials in the US, right?

[00:11:59]Are those two things linked? How big of a role might US influence be playing here? So when Trump uh started talking about the 51st state uh applied serious tariffs or threatened serious tariffs on Canada to basically tear up our trade pact, a lot of Canadians uh reacted with revulsion and uh it developed anti- US sentiment, travel boycott. Uh here in Alberta, um that's been the case as well. But among the separatists, uh they seem to support Trump. They really favor Trump. And yes, you're right. uh the lead the leaders of the separatist movement of the group that was driving this separatist petition they've gone down to the states a number of times both uh this year and last year uh to meet with what they say is uh administration officials they say pretty high ranking ones uh US uh media sources have said uh they're overstating their case but that they've talked to people uh who might give them support one of the leaders boast that there could be a half a trillion dollar financial credit line of credit for the sovereign province of Alberta should or country of Alberta should this happen. That's sort of denied by the uh by the White House, but it's very unusual. There was a TV interview uh with uh the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent back in January where he seemed to be very favorable >> toward the idea of Alberta separate separating. He didn't say we'd welcome them as our 51st state or territory, but he did say we'd sure love their oil.

[00:13:27]Alberta is a wealth of natural resources, but they they won't let him build a pipeline to to the Pacific. I I think we should let them come down the US.

[00:13:40]>> But even if this movement actually succeeds politically, like say this vote in October says yes, we should go to referendum and the second referendum Albertans vote to leave Canada. It's not going to be as simple as uh the yes vote passing and then you know they leave.

[00:13:55]There's going to have to be a lot of negotiations with the federal government, with indigenous groups.

[00:13:59]>> There's a series of negotiations uh on how to leave uh who gets what, who gets the national parks, who gets the military bases, what happens with First Nations, uh treaty lands. Uh those are going to be all these different discussions. It's not clear what Alberta gets, how it divies up assets, financial assets, pension funds, >> military hardware. Um a lot of whatifs.

[00:14:21]I mean, you think about Brexit. There are a lot of parallels on Brexit here.

[00:14:24]Uh but but one of them is when they voted in 2016 to leave, it still took a number of years to negotiate that divorce from the European Union. just just kind of sticking with this this Brexit comparison, even though separation itself would be difficult. Um Mark Carney and a lot of other people who've been commenting on this seem worried that even the act of putting this to a vote of legitimizing this movement could change the country, right? He compared it to Brexit, which was another thing that people didn't think would happen until suddenly there was a vote. um the vote went the other way and the country then had to deal with with the consequences.

[00:15:06]>> That is a very dangerous bluff. We saw I saw firsthand what happened in the United Kingdom when the view was vote for this it'll be soft and then we'll negotiate etc. and they ended up and they're still 10 years later trying to undo what people didn't think they were voting for but what they ended up having. Do you think there is a risk here that even if most Albertans don't actually want to leave Canada right now, putting this to a vote gives this movement the kind of legitimacy um gives it the kind of oxygen that it didn't have before and you know it takes on a life of its own and becomes much much bigger.

[00:15:42]>> The separatist movement uh for a long time had nowhere to go. It had no political support among leadership of any major party. It could never get a a candidate elected. they were always kind of on the fringe. Having this petition and now this referendum gives them a place in the mainstream debate because how can you plan, you know, pipelines between different provinces or organize major world events or, you know, talk about internal trade when one of the provinces, you know, is on a path to potentially leave entirely. The Brexit uh parallels are really interesting and really compelling. In Brexit, you had the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, who didn't believe in leaving the EU himself, but he knew a lot of people within his party did. So, he put forward a referend to appease them, tried to defeat them, surprised that he lost. This could happen in Alberta as well, uh, where Danielle Smith puts forth this referendum to quell internal debate within her own party and there could be this big surprise. However, I would say there is one one really important distinction between the Brexit vote and this Alberta uh Canada vote with Brexit.

[00:16:55]>> Think about it. Most people who are voting in Brexit weren't born with European Union as part of their government identity. Their >> personal political identity was as Brits, as Scots, as people from the UK, uh not as Europeans.

[00:17:12]Whereas here, people grow up, they sing the national anthem of Canada. They have Canada on their passport. They cheer for team Canada in the Olympics and in major sporting events. They believe in Canada.

[00:17:24]So, I think that for them there's there will be this big emotional pull towards staying in Canada. That is a formidable uh challenge for the Alberta separatist to overcome.

[00:17:34]>> I'm wondering if you could give me kind of a temperature check right now of how how people outside of Alberta are reading all of this. What are you hearing? Are people taking this seriously? Are they rolling their eyes?

[00:17:45]What's what's like the mood right now?

[00:17:47]>> Oh, god. It's kind of a bit of all of those things. A lot of it is like like kind of your question is Canada's is a lot of Kenan's question. What is going on there? We thought this was a placid boring relationship. You know, there was some frustrations that Alberta had, but are you guys really that fed up? Oh, wait. you're not only a small vocal group are, then why are you holding this referendum? I mean, there is a lot of frustration uh nationally and among even other fellow uh provincial premers uh with this decision that Daniel Smith made to put forth this referendum. But there's also this awareness that if you pour if you get too angry, if you get too hot, certainly if Mark Carney and his liberal federal government get too hot under the collar and too angry and critical and deressive of the separatist movement, then they risk painting a big target on their backs that this becomes not the debate among Albertans, but a debate of Alberta versus the big central threat in Ottawa or Ontario or Quebec.

[00:18:50]And that might make it easier for people to say yes. So there is this interesting balancing act that a lot of politicians and people have uh on whether how hot to fight this and how to make their case for Albertans to stay in Canada.

[00:19:04]>> So I mean given everything that we've talked about this kind of vulnerable moment that Canada's in right now as Mark Carney is trying to unite the country in the face of of Trump's tariffs. um e even though there there isn't a real danger of Alberta leaving tomorrow, what's the real danger of this moment and what does it kind of reveal about where the country is at right now?

[00:19:30]uh people who want to weaken Canada like Trump it seems uh will be very happy that this country that was seemed like he was uniting uh you know in defiance of his tariff threat of his trade threat of his 51st state threat now it's fractured a lot of people in the business community are worried about what this does to investment are people going to want to commit billions of dollars to major projects within Canada if the question of what Canada looks is is in question. And the other big thing is does the separatist movement become this permanent national force >> within Canada and how does that skew what our national conversation is? Um, >> you know, I've heard tell radio callers talking about losing friendships over this cuz people will be campaigning for this so strongly uh in in my province uh that you know these are pretty black and white issues. Do you want your flag to be this or this? Do you want to stay in your country or want to leave your country? These are dramatic questions and it's going to be a very divisive uh probably ugly and passionate uh debate.

[00:20:41]And even if the side loses, the separatists lose lose, which they likely will in the fall and only say 25 30% of people vote, that's still a million people or so in your province who are committed to leaving. and we're not sure what kind of division that's going to sew within our national fabric.

[00:21:00]>> Wow. Well, Jason, thank you so much for for this conversation. I think people will find it really interesting and I'm always uh really happy when I get to sneak Canada episodes into the take. So, thanks for thanks for being a part of it.

[00:21:13]>> Well, I hope Canadians and the rest of the world enjoyed the conversation.