That's what makes this fall’s referendum on separation so unsettling. For many people, the question feels less like a viable choice and more like an ultimatum.

The campaign feels manipulative: a risky attempt to translate genuine dissatisfaction with Alberta’s place in Confederation into either leverage for a better deal or a pretext for breaking up the country. Worse yet, a foolish gambit by a premier bent on keeping her grip on power.

For generations, many (but not all) Albertans have felt undervalued and misunderstood by Ottawa: on energy, fiscal transfers, pipelines, environmental policy, and representation.

Whether grounded in an objective analysis of the policy landscape or not, that sense of alienation is both deep and broad, and no serious federalist should dismiss it.

Most Albertans have never had a beef with Canadians in other provinces (about a quarter of us come from away), let alone shown a sustained desire to leave the country. Many of us believe Alberta deserves more respect and influence in Canada (the West still wants in), but that is different from wanting out.

The same is true in the other direction. Albertans can be unhappy with the direction of their province or the performance of their government. Yet disappointment in the provincial government is not the same as giving up on Alberta.

Despite this antipathy toward their governments, Albertans remain attached to both province and country.

And those feelings are not dichotomous.

Much like their counterparts in the rest of Canada (outside Quebec), Albertans who feel a strong sense of attachment to their province also feel a strong sense of identification with their country.

That is the essence of federalism: people holding more than one political identity at a time. Albertans can be fiercely provincial and proudly Canadian. They can belong to a local community, a treaty relationship, a region, and a country all at once. These attachments do not need to cancel each other out.

It has been that way for a long time.

Results from our own Viewpoint Alberta surveys mirror those of the IRPP/Environics Confederation of Tomorrow series. Since 2019, around half of Albertans have indicated they feel “Canadian only” or “Canadian first”, compared with about 20 percent who feel “Albertan only” or “Albertan first”. The remaining one-third feel an equal attachment to province and country. In fact, over 80 percent of Albertans feel a dual attachment of some kind -- a sentiment that cuts across partisan lines.

The same is not true when it comes to feelings of alienation.

While Viewpoint and IRPP/Environics data show NDP supporters have become less disenchanted with the province’s place in Confederation since 2019, UCP supporters have remained highly resentful.

Unsurprisingly, the reverse is true when we examine attitudes toward the provincial government and the province’s future: New Democrats have grown increasingly dissatisfied on both counts, while United Conservatives remain positive.

In other words, partisanship matters when it comes to feelings of alienation from governments, but not when it comes to a deeper sense of loyalty to province and country.

Albertans can be angry with Ottawa without hating Canada. They can be disappointed in Edmonton without turning their backs on Alberta.

They can want a stronger Alberta without wanting a weaker Canada or vice versa. They can demand respect without walking away.

When Albertans are asked whether the province is treated unfairly by Ottawa, should have more autonomy, or have more influence in federal decisions, many say yes. But when asked whether they feel attached to Canada, value their citizenship, or want to keep national programs like the Canada Pension Plan and the RCMP, many of those same people also say yes. Many want to maintain and even strengthen these attachments, and exert more influence within Confederation.

They want to lead, not leave.

The danger of a separation referendum is that it crams those loyalties into checkboxes. It invites people to express years of frustration with one level of government -- to send it a message -- through the most drastic option available: breaking up the country.

Even among separatists, a sizeable share still feels some affinity towards Canada. This bears repeating: according to Viewpoint Alberta surveys, as many as 40 percent of people who would vote to establish an independent country still report feeling a somewhat strong attachment to Canada.

Unlike many other secessionist movements, Alberta’s is not rooted in memories of lost independence. Alberta was never a sovereign state. It was created by the federal government and has always existed within Canada. Laurentian elites are correct on those points.

This is why some avowed separatists complain about the perceived desecration of the Canadian flag during Pride Month. It’s also why separatists promise Albertans can keep the Canadian things they like: their pensions, their passports, and their familial connections. They know many supporters are reluctant to give Canada up entirely.

Federalists should learn from that. Instead of scolding Albertans for feeling alienated, or treating provincial pride as somehow traitorous, the answer is to affirm both loyalties: to carry and take ownership of both flags and invite others to do the same.

This October, Albertans are being asked to choose between maintaining their dual attachments to Canada and Alberta by remaining in Confederation, or siding with those who want to force us abandon one loyalty for the other.

Thank you for the invitation to join you today. I’m a political scientist at the University of Alberta, and I lead the Common Ground project. Since 2019, our research team has been in the field studying Alberta public opinion and political culture through surveys, focus groups, social media analysis, and direct observation.

More recently, we have been diving deeply into the Alberta separatist movement: attending rallies, tracking online networks, studying speeches, and dissecting the proposals being put before Albertans.

I’m also involved in Lead Not Leave, a policy initiative aimed at promoting a better conversation about Alberta’s place in Confederation.

But more than that, I’m an Albertan. I don’t say that lightly. Many of us who are anxious about the trajectory of the province have a difficult time identifying with our provincial community. We are comfortable saying we are from Alberta, but less comfortable saying we are of Alberta.

A few years ago, I celebrated my “Albertaversary” — the date at which I spent more time living in Alberta than where I came from. Around that same time, I came to appreciate how important it was to connect my tenure in the province to my identity. Not because I think there is one right way to be Albertan.

Quite the opposite.

Because I think Alberta desperately needs a broader understanding of itself — one that reflects the diversity within the province and one that projects a confidence in that diversity to the rest of the world. I want to close today by returning to that idea, because I think it is crucial to the effort to strengthen Alberta’s role in Confederation.

In the meantime, I have been invited today to speak about three things.

First: where Alberta is right now. As many folks often ask me, “what the hell is going on in Alberta?” And “Should we be worried?” The answers: “something quite new, actually” and “actually, yes” might be sobering for some of you.

Second: how we got here. The salience of separatism has increased rather rapidly, and it’s important not to confuse it for your grandfather’s brand of western alienation. It is a far-right populist movement, and it has found a willing enabler in the provincial government. In no uncertain terms: we are where we are because the Smith government led us here.

And third: what Albertans — and Canadians outside Alberta — can do to ensure Alberta remains a stronger part of a better Canada. This doesn’t mean appeasing separatists, but it does mean addressing some of the unfortunate relationship habits that have developed within our Confederation family over the past decade.

So, where are we?

Alberta is heading toward a historic day of voting on October 19. On that single day, Albertans are expected to face at least ten referendum questions — more than in the rest of Alberta’s history combined. Five are on immigration. Four are on the Constitution. One is on separation. And there may be another on coal mining in the Rockies.

The separation question is not a simple “Remain or Leave” question. It’s not based on a “Yes” or “No” response set. Instead, it asks whether Albertans want to remain in Canada, or begin the process of holding a second referendum on leaving. That wording is crucial, and is one of the many advantages granted to the separatist side over the past year.

Polling suggests Albertans are poised to vote to remain in Canada — by a rate of 60/40 or 65/35. That’s about where Quebec ended up in 1980, remember. But support for remaining is softer when the question is framed as continuing a process rather than as a direct choice between Canada and independence. It’s weaker still when stress-tested by questions like, “would you like to lose your passport?” “or your pension?”

On separation, Albertans are deeply divided along partisan lines. Roughly half of UCP and Conservative Party supporters say they would vote to continue down the path toward separation. Nearly all NDP and Liberal voters say they would vote to end that journey.

But it would be a mistake to assume Albertans are divided in the same way on every part of this debate.

Consider identity. When we ask Albertans how they see themselves, only a very small group — about five percent — identify as Albertan only. Another ten percent identify as Canadian only. The vast majority see themselves as some combination of the two: Albertan and Canadian. So this is not a province full of people who have abandoned Canada emotionally. Indeed, even a surprising number of separatists report feeling at least somewhat attached to Canada. (One assumes this is an affinity for what Canada used to be, as opposed to what it has become or where it is headed.)

The fact that only one-in-four or one-in-five Albertans want to separate does not mean we are a province full of people who are satisfied with the status quo, though.

When it comes to Alberta’s place in Confederation, Albertans do not divide neatly into three clean camps: federalists, autonomists, and separatists. Our team has tried to pigeon-hole Albertans into those categories. But it simply doesn’t work. Most Albertans want to build bridges with the rest of the country. There is still a strong “West Wants In” mentality that carries over from the Reform Party era. At the same time, a majority also wants Alberta to pursue more autonomy within Canada. But that support drops when autonomy means abandoning major national institutions like the Canada Pension Plan, the RCMP, or the Canada Revenue Agency.

So Albertans are not separatists in waiting. But neither are they uncomplicated federalists.

What almost all Albertans share is some sense of alienation from the rest of Canada. Across regions, classes, parties, and ideological camps, many Albertans feel that the province is not treated fairly by the federal government. That it does not get its fair share of attention or support. That feeling has declined noticeably since the 2025 federal election, but it remains a defining feature of Alberta political culture.

Some express this alienation as anger and estrangement. Others express it as frustration and yearning.

Underneath all of this is a feeling of underappreciation. And yes, a little martyrdom. Being undervalued is part of Alberta’s political DNA. For separatists, I fear it it has grown into a full-blown victim complex. But for mainstream Alberta, the sentiment is one of unrequited love — a desire to be more appreciated and understood, not to leave.

We have all been part of relationships like this. And if you have not, maybe you were the martyr.

But that analogy — Alberta as the jilted lover — is very different from the analogy separatists use. In separatist speeches and propaganda, Alberta is often portrayed as the abused spouse of Confederation. That comparison is both deeply disrespectful to victims and factually inaccurate.

It also reveals something important about the separatist project. It is not simply about constitutional reform or fiscal federalism. It is about recasting Canada as something not merely disappointing, but violent. Again, that mentality is not widespread. It is, however, gaining a toehold in the province’s political culture. Alongside separatism.

Our Common Ground focus groups show that the Overton Window has moved. In our sessions, we often ask participants to draw us “an Albertan.” For years, the figure who emerged — what we sometimes call “Average Joe” — was not a separatist. But over the past two years, he has become separatist-curious. That does not mean most Albertans support independence. They do not. But it does mean separatism has become a legitimate part of Alberta’s political discourse in a way it was not before. That is a necessary condition for the growth of separatism — though by no means a sufficient one.

Taken together, the facts are clear: separatism has become more salient than ever before. Media attention has increased. Google searches have increased. The movement is getting more oxygen. But so far, that attention has not translated into increased support. Reputable polls peg the “leave vote” as plateauing around 20 to 25 percent.

Given all the extra attention, why hasn’t separatism grown more popular? One reason may be the leadership of the separatist movement itself. Many separatists we speak to acknowledge that the current leadership embodies the worst stereotypes of what it means to be Albertan. They are unlikely to grow the movement in the way René Lévesque or Lucien Bouchard did in Quebec, or Boris Johnson did in the United Kingdom. But that could change. One high-profile elite conversion could shift the dynamic very quickly. A more charismatic, credible, or institutionally connected separatist figure could go a long way toward increasing support. Especially considering the divided nature of the Remain camp.

A second reason for the stagnation of separatist support may be what David Coletto calls the precarity mindset. In a time of global uncertainty and a marauding southern neighbour, Canadians — Albertans included — are looking for steady leadership and stable politics. Even the debate around separatism — let alone the actual act of independence — creates the sort of radical disorder conservatives bristle against.

On another level, the Trump administration is deeply unpopular among many Albertans. Thus, the separatist leadership’s self-described “close ties” to the White House may be driving more Albertans away from the movement than toward it.

So separatism is louder. It is more visible. It is seen as more legitimate as a topic of conversation. But it has not yet become broadly popular. Nonetheless, Albertans are heading to the polls this fall in what could be the first of two referendums on whether to leave Canada. We should not rest on our laurels. If Brexit shows us anything, things can change in a hurry.

So, how did we get here?

The first part of the answer is cultural. The second is institutional. Culturally, modern separatism is not your grandparents’ western alienation.

It is a mistake to treat today’s separatists as the inheritors of the 1980s Western Canada Concept or Confederation of Regions tradition. Many separatist leaders and followers would struggle to tell you what the NEP stands for, let alone explain how it worked. Justin Trudeau is a frequent target of separatist anger. But Pierre Trudeau barely figures into their thinking.

The grievances at the heart of the separatist cause appear familiar. They are primarily economic, focusing largely on equalization and federal regulations on the oil and gas industry. But the tone has changed noticeably.

In earlier versions of western alienation, the complaint was that Alberta was being held back by Ottawa. Today, the grievance is more personal and more existential.

It is not only that Alberta is being held back. It is that “real Albertans” are falling behind. Falling behind other Canadians. Falling behind previous generations. Falling behind their own expectations of where they thought they would be at this stage of their careers and lives. Many speak openly about the forces of globalization, which they see as having taken away once-honoured jobs in primary industry while bringing foreign ideas and foreign people into their communities.

This is not just a battle against Ottawa. It is not just a battle against Justin Trudeau. It is also a battle against Greta Thunberg. And against the Somali neighbours who moved in down the block. It is part of the broader, global “culture wars” that pit proponents of globalization against some of its victims. Separatists are stoking these grievances and anxieties in much the same way far-right populist movements have done in the United States and Britain. And the provincial government has enabled it.

That brings us to the institutional side of the story. When Jason Kenney returned to Alberta to unite the right and defeat the New Democrats, he made a series of fateful decisions that set Alberta down the path toward separatism. One was his referendum-to-nowhere on removing the equalization principle from the Constitution. That exercise (some may say, stunt) became a template for Danielle Smith’s four constitutional referendum questions this fall.

But the more consequential choice involved the internal rules of the new United Conservative Party. Kenney removed many of the guardrails that had existed under the old Progressive Conservatives. Instead of keeping many of the gates that insulate the leader from populist uprisings, the UCP rules allowed powerful factions to form and hold the premier to account on a continual basis.

Most importantly, the party created a provision allowing one-quarter of all constituency presidents to trigger a leadership review. That 22-person threshold became an organizational focus for far-right populists who used it to topple Kenney during the COVID-19 crisis. And it is the same Gang of 22 that now hold sway over Premier Smith.

Under that pressure, Smith has not merely removed the remaining guardrails to separatism. As my colleague at the University of Calgary, Lisa Young, puts it: the premier has paved the road to a separatist referendum and closed the off-ramps.

On the legal front, her government lowered the signature threshold for a constitutional citizen initiative. Under Kenney’s original version of the law, a petition required signatures from 20 percent of registered voters provincewide, plus support in two-thirds of ridings. That is a very high bar, but a threshold just low enough to entice organizers into blowing off steam in an effort to meet it. Smith lowered cut that threshold in half — to 10 percent of votes cast in the last provincial election, and she removed the regional requirements (which stood in the way of a purely urban or rural movement from taking control of the agenda).

Smith also extended the collection window from 90 days to 120 days. That means that while federalists were forced to collect roughly 300,000 signatures across the province in 90 days — a feat they accomplished under the Forever Canadian banner — separatists needed only about 176,000 signatures over 120 days.

The government also allowed corporate and union money into citizen initiative campaigns, where previously only individuals could contribute. And it removed the cap on political party spending in these campaigns. That allows the government and corporate donors to dominate the field — potentially to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars per question, and millions across the full suite.

The government also removed the requirement that petitions be based on constitutionally sound premises — but not before Justice Feasby dismissed the first Stay Free Alberta petition as an abrogation of treaty rights.

And the Smith government reduced the Chief Electoral Officer’s gatekeeping role, including the ability to advise applicants and refer questions to court for review.

Politically, Smith has also done a lot of the separatists’ work for them. She has inflated the size of the movement compared to verified estimates. She repeatedly cites Stay Free Alberta’s claim of 300,000 signatures as if it were fact, knowing full well those numbers have not been validated by Elections Alberta due to the court’s prohibition.

Just as important is what Smith has not done. She has not called for a public inquiry into the separatists’ illegal use of the Electors List. Take Back Alberta lead, David Parker — who played a leading role in ousting Kenney and installing Smith — stands accused of illegally accessing the voters list and publishing it publicly on his Centurion Project website. It is unknown how this access affected the petition-collection process, or how it may provide separatists with an ongoing advantage in the current referendum campaign. Regardless, Premier Smith is not waiting for ongoing investigations by the RCMP and Elections Alberta to be completed.

So, what can we do?

First, Albertans have to be at the forefront of the struggle to keep Alberta in Canada. This cannot be a campaign imposed or orchestrated from Ottawa. As Jen Gerson reminds us, it cannot be a campaign driven by Laurentian elites lecturing Albertans about what is good for them. Albertans need to lead it.

But they also need to be strategic.

That means avoiding scare tactics that play directly into the separatists’ condemnation of the federalist side. Threats do little to quell the fear and anxiety driving many Albertans to support or consider separatism.

But this does not mean coddling or appeasing the separatists. Rather, it means pre-bunking and debunking separatist claims by questioning the facts and assumptions behind them. It means not being afraid of “platforming” separatists. The government has already built them a stage. The question is not whether they will be heard. The question is whether their claims will be challenged.

It means establishing a firm set of facts about Alberta’s current place in Confederation and its historic contributions to the country. It also means avoiding a campaign for the status quo.

The Remain side cannot simply say, “Everything is fine.” Or, worse yet, “sit down and shut up.” Everything is not fine. Albertans have real grievances, even when separatists exaggerate and exploit them or misdiagnose their causes. A successful Remain campaign has to offer constructive and feasible reforms that make for a stronger Alberta and a better Canada. That is what Lead Not Leave will be focused on in the coming weeks and months.

But there is also a deeper identity piece. Federalists in Alberta should not campaign solely for Canada. They also need to reclaim Alberta as a part of Canada. They need to reclaim the provincial flag. They need to expand the definition of what it means to be Albertan.

I remember being at a separatist rally last October. I picked up a button that said, “I am Albertan.” I wore it as I walked back from the Legislature Grounds. As I moved farther away from the rally, I noticed people reacting to the button. A few groups whispered as I passed, assuming I was a separatist. Eventually, I stopped and spoke with one of them. I told them I was not, in fact, a separatist. But I hoped to be a prouder Albertan one day. And I asked whether they wanted to join me in that effort. They did. And we had a great conversation about the importance of reclaiming that part of our identities.

I have similar conversations after public talks. People will come up to me — almost always federalists, moderates, or progressives — and I will ask them: “Are you Albertan?” They usually respond, “Yes, I’m from Alberta.” Or, “Yes, my family has been here for generations.” And I’ll say: that is not what I asked. I did not ask where you live. I did not ask where you or your family are from. I asked whether you are Albertan.

Until more federalists, moderates, and progressives step up and claim “Albertan” as part of their identity, the province will continue to have a narrow understanding of what it means to belong. That narrowness fuels the separatist campaign. Because if only separatists get to define what it means to be Albertan, then the rest of us have already conceded too much.

What can the rest of Canada do?

I want to close by answering a question I am getting more and more often: What can federalists in the rest of Canada do to support the Remain side?

Let me start with what they should not do.

First: do not buy into separatist propaganda about the size of their movement. Like the premier, national media outlets have been too willing to repeat Stay Free Alberta’s talking points: that they collected 300,000 signatures, or that separatists make up 30 percent of the population, or that the movement represents more than a million Albertans. These claims are unsubstantiated. They might be true, but we have no firm evidence. You can report that separatists are making those claims. You can even nod to the probability that over a hundred thousand people signed the papers. But do not report the claims as facts.

Second: do not dismiss Albertans’ grievances as illegitimate. If most Albertans feel like jilted lovers, as I said earlier, then invalidating their sense of unrequited love is not going to help. You do not have to accept every grievance as fact. But you do have to understand that those grievances form part of people’s political reality. And their identity. Your judgment will never be their reality. The better approach is to find common ground around reasonable concerns, acknowledge the feelings behind them, and move forward constructively.

That’s what you shouldn’t do. Now what can federalists in the rest of Canada do?

First, platform voices of reason from within Alberta. Do not “both-sides” every argument about Alberta’s future in or out of Confederation, especially when the other side is not grounding its arguments in evidence. Amplifying messages grounded in conspiracy theories is not helpful.

Second, don’t be afraid of speaking out in favour of a strong Alberta in a better Canada. Not all federalists are autonomists who would look at this as interference. If mainstream Alberta is yearning for acknowledgement and recognition, don’t hold back.

Third, celebrate Alberta’s contributions to Confederation. When Alberta does well, do not treat it as a fluke. When Alberta struggles, do not treat it as cosmic or environmental karma. Alberta’s successes are Canadian successes. Alberta’s losses are Canadian losses. Albertans are Canadians.

Fourth, policy-wise, there are several areas worth exploring. More federal jobs in Alberta would be a strong first step. The vast majority of Albertans support that move. Lead Not Leave will also have more to say about reforms to the fiscal stabilization fund — reforms that would make it clear Canada has Alberta’s back in moments of economic crisis. We should also consider reviving something like the Social Union Framework Agreement, to restore a rules-based approach to national programs, services, and the federal spending power.

But we should also think beyond policy.

Fifth, we need to redevelop our physical and emotional connections. A Rally for Canada — not unlike the one held in Montreal in the closing days of the 1995 Quebec referendum — should be planned. Quite frankly, if there isn’t one, reasonable Albertans will question why not. If you have not heard of one, you should be forming and funding a committee today.

In the longer term, we should revisit the national unity projects of the 1990s — programs like SEVEC youth exchanges that sent young Canadians like me into Quebec, and young Quebeckers into the rest of Canada. We need a nationwide effort that builds bridges across the country. Not just railways. Not just pipelines. Emotional bridges between families across Canada.

The overall message should be simple: Alberta is not a problem to be managed. Alberta is not a spoiled child to be disciplined or dismissed. Alberta is not an alien province to be decoded from afar. Alberta is a respected, heard, and valued partner in Confederation.

That is the message Canadians need to send. And it is the message Albertans need to hear from one another. Because the choice before Alberta this fall is not simply whether to remain in Canada. It is whether we can imagine a version of Alberta big enough to include all of us. And whether Canada can imagine a version of itself that has room for Alberta not at the margins, not alone at the centre, but in a leadership role in creating a better country.

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13 days ago · 42 likes · 10 comments · Line Editor

That is the work ahead. And it is work worth doing.

Thank you.

The oft-repeated claim that organizers gathered roughly 300,000 signatures on a separation petition rests entirely on statements made by one individual: Mitch Sylvestre. There has been no independent verification, no public audit, and no transparent accounting of the signatures themselves.

If the courts prevent full validation of the petition, Albertans may never know how many legitimate signatures were actually collected.

That uncertainty alone should encourage caution.

Yet Mitch's number has dominated public discourse as an accepted fact rather than the unverified political assertion that it is.

Political movements frequently rely on demonstrations of momentum to expand the range of ideas considered politically plausible. This is called shifting the Overton Window, and it's something far-right populists throughout the world have excelled at over the past decade.

Claims of large crowds, surging memberships, or overwhelming public backing can reshape perceptions even when those claims are unsubstantiated.

Indeed, the more outlandish the claim, the less likely it may be challenged. Some assume that the assertion must be true (who would lie about something that big?), others fear amplifying the claim by challenging it (why give it more credibility?), while others fear being labeled conspiracy theorists by questioning its veracity (what evidence do we have, either way?).

By exploiting these tendencies, the separatists’ 300K narrative functions less as evidence of support than as a tactic for normalizing separatism within Alberta politics. And it's working.

Some top journalists repeat the claim as fact, without the necessary context. When questioned, many refuse to respond or simply throw up their hands.

Fact is: repeated references to “300,000 signatures” create the potentially false impression that separatism has moved from the political fringe toward the mainstream. The more often political leaders, commentators, and journalists repeat the number without qualification, the more credible the movement appears.

An objective examination of the separatist petition raises several important, unanswered questions, though.

The electors list controversy reveals legitimate concerns around how signatures may have been collected and whether the petition process complied with legal and ethical standards. It also introduces additional uncertainty into claims about the scale and validity of support.

These circumstances do not invalidate the separatists 300K claim. But they do demand we frame the number as being "claimed" not proven.

At present, Albertans are being asked to accept a major political claim largely on trust. That would be notable under any circumstances. It becomes more problematic when the principal source of the claim has a public record of promoting highly dubious assertions on the campaign trail.

Sylvestre has previously circulated claims that billions of dollars in federal spending were personally diverted by Justin Trudeau, that large numbers of immigrants entering Canada could be foreign soldiers, and that Canada profits from selling organs obtained through assisted dying. I am not going to post links to the speeches where he spreads those lies. They're not hard to find, and he's unlikely to stop spreading them at events this summer. This pattern of disinformation does not automatically invalidate every subsequent claim he makes, but it does provide reasonable grounds for skepticism.

The timing of the separatist movement’s messaging also warrants scrutiny. In late March, organizers publicly acknowledged difficulties meeting identification requirements during signature collection. Within days, however, the narrative shifted dramatically toward claims of overwhelming success. The abrupt change invites questions about what shifted and whether the confidence reflected a miraculous recovery or simply strategic communication. Particularly given the coincidental timing of when spearatists came into possession of the electors' list.

From a political standpoint, the 300K claim may have been effective regardless of whether the signatures are ultimately validated. If organizers believed the petition would face legal or procedural challenges before any public verification occurred, then the immediate objective may never have been certification alone. Instead, it may have been to establish a perception of momentum strong enough to influence public debate and pressure political elites, including journalists and the premier.

In that respect, the separatist movement has already achieved a partial victory. Large numbers of Albertans now appear willing to assume separatism commands far broader support than existing public opinion data has consistently shown.

To repeat: none of this proves the movement failed to collect enough signatures. It remains entirely possible that organizers gathered the required number.

But possibility is not proof.

We should not treat the separatists' claim as fact. We should treat the fact that they're claiming it as fact. There's a world of difference between the two.

She’s the one dragging the province and the country further down that road, with the latest milestone being her “referendum-on-the referendum” announced tonight.

This is her project now, in the same way the 1995 Quebec referendum belongs to Jacques Parizeau and Brexit belongs to David Cameron. Like them, she has spent months clearing the path, fueling the bus, and charting the course. Like them, she feels the conditions are favourable for her to win.

That makes this Danielle Smith’s referendum to lose.

It will take the effort of every Alberta federalist to win it.

In tonight's televised address, the premier announced a tenth question will be added to Canada's longest-ever referendum ballot:

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?

For months, Smith has tried to frame the still-looming separation referendum as an unavoidable expression of grassroots democratic pressure. Her strategy has been to turn the vote into something organically and procedurally inevitable.

It is none of those things.

Smith isn’t just removing barricades blocking a separatist referendum. She's widened the highway. Her government lowered the signature thresholds required for a successful petition, extended the time allowed to gather signatures, and even attempted to shield the petition process from judicial review.

A leader does not go to those lengths unless she really wants to see a vote.

And then came the ill-fated signature drive.

In April 2026, organizers with Stay Free Alberta claimed to have collected more than 300,000 signatures: nearly double the threshold needed to trigger a referendum under the revised law. Even that achievement came wrapped in controversy. A parallel separatist group, the Centurion Project, stands accused of improperly using Alberta’s Electors’ List and distributing it publicly online. Yet despite the ethical and legal clouds surrounding the process, Smith kept the referendum bus moving forward.

No waiting for Elections Alberta or the police to finish their investigations. No establishing a public inquiry to restore faith in the fairness of the process.

Beyond taking down the barricades and barrelling through the storm of controversy, Lisa Young reminds us that the premier has repeatedly refused to take the offramps to a separatist referendum. To her list, I’d add yesterday’s committee debacle, which provided Smith with one final chance to pull off the freeway.

Once again, she pushed the accelerator and sped by.

Her latest move — a referendum on whether to have another referendum — amounts to less of a detour than a reduced speed zone. It certainly doesn't stop or change the direction of traffic.

If anything, it gives separatists another set of advantages:

• More time to mobilize toward an eventual separation vote. Most polls indicate a “leave” campaign would lose outright in October. Delaying the ultimate decision may well turn out to be in the separatists’ advantage.

• An easier case to argue. Rather than convincing soft separatists to leave now, they simply need to persuade enough Albertans support another vote and, in doing so, send a message to both Carney and Smith that Albertans will have their say.

• Less urgency for the Remain side. In framing the question, the premier has provided a weak position for the anti-separation side. “Remain” carries with it the sort of passive, status-quo overtones that doomed David Cameron's anti-Brexit campaign. In holding a vote on whether or not to vote, the premier has not simply lowered the stakes, but also given armchair federalists a reason to save their energy and attention until it really counts.

• Motivation to oust the premier. If a primary impetus for a referendum was to quell dissent within the UCP ranks, this milquetoast question has done the opposite. Not unlike how they pushed out Jason Kenney for his handling of the pandemic, separatist leaders are mobilizing to remove the woman they put in his place. Their reaction is entirely predictable, and has the real potential to leave Alberta with a lame duck or interim premier in the closing weeks of a referendum campaign. As much as Smith has committed to respecting the outcome of that vote, her successor would be under no such moral or political obligation.

At the risk of mixing metaphors, another analogy is apt.

For someone on the Remain side, Smith has a habit of making her opponents’ case for them. She continues to make misleading claims about “700,000” Albertans pushing for an independence vote. The Forever Canadian petition was not premised on that basis, and the Stay Free Alberta petition numbers have never been validated.

Smith has designed and redesigned the process that she now claims she is beholden to. She has rigged the system to the separatists’ benefit. Deliberately. Repeatedly.

To this day, Danielle Smith is helping to manufacture the social license and set the procedural stage to hold an independence referendum.

If federalists win this first vote — and this is by no means a given — it will not be because the premier ran a successful Remain campaign. Quite the opposite: a federalist victory will come despite Danielle Smith providing separatists with a host of unfair advantages. Including holding the referendum-on-the-referendum in the first place.

Some outstanding questions I have at this hour:

1. What does the premier consider to be a clear majority on this question? Is it 50% +1, or does it require a supermajority? Does the regional balance of votes matter? And what is an acceptable level of turnout?

2. If the remain side loses, will the premier resign (as Parizeau and Cameron did before her)?

3. The premier claims her cabinet and caucus support a strong Alberta within a united Canada. Will the government be running a formal pro-remain campaign? Will UCP ministers and MLAs be allowed to campaign against her own Remain position and avoid being expelled from the party?

4. What steps are being taken to reduce the burden on voters whonare expected to cast 10 different ballots this fall? What is an acceptable wait time to participate in this democratic exercise? Given the long lines at municipal elections last fall (with half the number of ballots), this is a pressing concern.

She can have a separatism referendum, or she can have a pipeline to the West Coast. But the former makes the latter all but impossible.

A pipeline requires a level of diplomacy, focus, and commitment to Canada that a referendum makes impossible to generate, let alone sustain.

Under the Alberta-Canada framework announced today, consultations with First Nations are expected to begin in days, not weeks. Presumably, a significant portion of the engagements need to be completed by July 1, before the province submits its pipeline pitch to Ottawa.

Even under normal circumstances, those compressed talks would be difficult. Add a referendum campaign about Alberta leaving Canada and taking treaty lands with it, and the entire process becomes even more bogged down.

Given ongoing court cases and years of political sniping, there is virtually no chance those consultations stay focused on route selection, mitigation measures, or economic benefits. Separatism will dominate the conversation.

For many Indigenous leaders, Alberta separation raises basic constitutional questions about treaties, sovereignty, land rights, and the Crown relationship. The level of disdain and animosity shown by separatist settlers toward Indigenous people in the hours since the court's petition ruling will only inflame the situation, especially if the premier fails to call it out.

And the tensions won’t stop at the Alberta border.

Many First Nations in British Columbia already oppose the idea of another west coast pipeline. If a separatist referendum enters the picture, even supportive chiefs in BC will face pressure to show solidarity with First Nations in Alberta raising concerns about treaty obligations. Lest they open the door to similar moves by separatists on their own side of the Rockies.

The reverse is true as well: Alberta chiefs who might otherwise approach consultations positively will face pressure not to break ranks with Indigenous communities in BC.

And don't forget: Alberta would need British Columbia’s cooperation to make any west coast pipeline politically viable.

Threatening national unity is not a particularly effective opening bid when you are asking a neighboring province to help carry your resources to tidewater. (This is also a lesson for separatists who think it would be easier to negotiate a pipeline with a foreign country than one within Canada.)

The pipeline talks will become a lightning rod for animosity toward the Smith government. And not just from external opponents. Separatists from inside her base will also try to scuttle the pipeline project to prove that Canada is too broken to fix. This will make the pipeline a source of division, not unity, at the UCP's fall AGM.

Concurrent referendum and pipeline campaigns would be a major distraction for a government bent on winning up to eleven referendums this October. Not to mention advancing their broader legislative agenda or addressing the public's priority concerns in the last year before a provincial election.

Then comes the federal government's stage of the timeline.

Ottawa is supposed to make a decision on the pipeline proposal on October 1 — just 18 days before a potential referendum vote.

That timing creates enormous pressure on the federal government to approve.

If Ottawa rejects or delays the project during the final stretch of a referendum campaign, separatists will immediately seize on it as proof that Alberta can never get a fair deal within Confederation. The symbolism would be devastating for federalists.

That leaves Ottawa in an almost impossible position: approve the project despite unresolved opposition and constitutional tension, or reject it and fuel separatist sentiment days before Albertans vote.

Neither option is good for the durability of a pipeline project or a government.

Lastly, there's the hypocrisy of the situation: a premier insisting on the necessity of a pipeline to quell separatist forces while she, herself, furthers their cause by calling a referendum.

At some point, Premier Smith must decide what she wants more: a pipeline or a referendum on separation.

The framework agreement with Ottawa could clear the path for the former.

She cannot have both.

A separatist referendum this fall appears less likely because of these delays, but is still possible if the premier decides to do an endrun around the petition process and put a question on a ballot in October.

For now, nobody outside the separatist organizers actually knows how many valid signatures were collected as part of the Stay Free Alberta petition. Elections Alberta has not been allowed to certify the totals. No investigation has been completed into the use of the stolen electors list in the petition drive.

Even so, the premier continues to cite the figure of 300,000 signatures in public statements, offering her own personal validation of the petition numbers in the absence of any independent verification.

From their provileged podiums, premiers influence which ideas appear credible, respectable, and viable. Repeating an unverified number from a separatist campaign gives the movement institutional validation at the very moment its central claim of being “mainstream” remains untested.

The premier’s comments also fit alongside a series of other decisions: lowering barriers for citizen-initiated referendums, changing petition rules in ways favourable to separatist organizers, refusing to call a public inquiry into the illegal use of the electors list...

Despite all of this, support for independence remains limited in Alberta. Our Viewpoint Alberta research finds little evidence that separatism has increased in popularity over the past 3 years. In a paper we are presenting next month, we report:

All told, separatism remains a preferred option for fewer than one-in-five Albertans. For example, when asked their opinions on a range measures to improve Alberta’s position relative to the rest of Canada, only 16 to 20 percent of respondents felt the province should “leave Canada and become its own independent country” (July 2025 to April 2026). This compared with a full 80 to 86 percent who felt “Alberta should stay in Canada and be treated the same as every other province.”

What has changed is the social acceptability surrounding the discussion. According to our parallel focus group study, conversations about separatism and independence increasingly appear less taboo, less politically risky, and more connected to ordinary provincial frustration.

Brexit offers a cautionary tale of how shifts in political culture can pre-date shifts in public opinion. Long before a majority of Britons supported leaving the European Union, the idea itself became normalized through elite signalling, relentless media attention, and repeated claims that dissatisfaction with the status quo was reaching critical mass. The political culture shifted first. Electoral support followed later.

Alberta separatism has the potential to move through similar stages. Petition numbers, rally attendance, polling claims, and dramatic social media imagery are all used to create the impression of rapid growth and broad public backing. The point is not persuasion to the separatist cause. At least, not yet. It is to cultivate the sense that separatism has become an ordinary, credible political position.

The premier’s rhetoric contributes to that process. Quoting unofficial signature numbers during an unresolved legal dispute is an act of normalization. Of mainstreaming.

The premier may simply be reflecting the political consensus within her bubble. She may also be responding to a base that is threatening to oust her from power if she doesn't hold a referendum.

Genuine federalists should avoid caricaturing separatist-curious Albertans as irrational or extremist. But unverifiable claims of mass support should not go unanswered either. Unofficial petition counts should be treated as unofficial. Dubious polling should be scrutinized. Synthetic or manipulated imagery should be identified as such. Disinformation needs to be called out. And we need to start prebunking against outlandish claims of not only the benefits, but the popularity, of separatism in Alberta.

There is no risk of platforming, here, when the premier has already built them a stage.

The truth is: none of us know how many Albertans really signed the Stay Free Alberta petition. That's why we have rules that, when respected, help us to validate the claims of social movements like the separatists. And federalists and environmentalists, for that matter.

Circumventing those rules is part of a broader pattern for the Smith government, whose behaviour suggests they are committed not just to holding an independence referendum but to mainstreaming separatism in Alberta.

We all have control over what we believe, though.

When it comes to the number of signatures collected, we don't have to take Mitch Silvestre's word as fact. Particularly when he has a track record of fabrication, disinformation, and rhetorical flourishes.

We can treat the fact he claims 300,000 signatures as fact. And let independent authorities validate it.

We don't have to do the separatists work of mainstreaming for them.

And neither does the premier.

Thirty-eight (38) academics from across the province joined me in publishing this open letter earlier this morning. I invite you to read and share it widely.

As we argue:

As I argued earlier, police and Elections Alberta investigations are underway. They are necessary. But they are not enough.

Police investigations are narrow by design: they focus on whether specific laws were broken by specific actors. Elections Alberta’s investigation is also limited by legislation, mandate, and capacity — and it is being asked to investigate a situation involving a voters list it is responsible for managing and distributing.

Albertans need more than piecemeal, behind-closed-doors investigations. We need a public process capable of answering the broader democratic questions:

• How did this happen?

• Who had access to the data?

• Was it copied, shared, downloaded, or used for political organizing?

• What safeguards failed?

• What laws need to change before Albertans are asked to vote again?

If you agree with our call for a national inquiry, here’s what you can do next:

Share our open letter widely.

Call your MLA. (Yes, it works!) Tell them Albertans deserve an independent public inquiry into the management and use of the voters list.

Then talk to at least six people in your network — friends, family members, neighbours, colleagues — and ask them to raise the same concern with their MLA and their peers. Don’t just forward them this email. Send a special note or text. Better yet, call or meet with them face-to-face.

A public inquiry will not happen unless Albertans demand it.

Our democracy depends on more than finding out whether someone broke the law. It depends on restoring public trust. And that requires public accountability.

Multiple investigations are underway. The RCMP will take years to investigate possible crimes. Elections Alberta, itself a player in this story, can only act within the increasingly narrow limits of its mandate and capacity. A legislative committee would turn this into political theatre.

But — not unlike the CorruptCare scandal — none of these separate investigations can provide Albertans the whole story in a timely and public fashion.

Only a full public inquiry can do that. And Albertans deserve one before they cast another ballot.

What we know so far

Elections Alberta believes the Republican Party of Alberta’s copy of the list was given to The Centurion Project, a pro-separation group led by David Parker (leader of Take BAck Alberta). A judge ordered Centurion to remove from the internet a searchable database containing the names and home addresses of close to three million provincial voters.

Despite Parker’s disingenuous claim to the contrary, that database was not as harmless as a phone book. It listed names and home addresses of nearly every eligible voter. This includes prominent politicians, elections officials, senators, judges, Crown prosecutors, journalists, and other public figures.

It also lists other folks who have good reasons not to have their personal information broadcast to the world. Parents of adopted or foster children. Health-care workers involved in providing abortions or gender affirming care. Teachers and school administrators. Researchers. Activists. Public servants. Members of marginalized communities. People escaping stalkers or abusive family members. All are more vulnerable today than they were before the list was leaked.

This is not to mention ordinary Albertans who simply do not want their home address turned over to political organizers. Or the millions who are now at risk of identity theft or fraud, particularly if (when) the list falls into the hands of criminal elements.

It also exposes anyone with whom a custodian of the list has an axe to grind. This raises the prospect of political intimidation, threats of violence, or worse.

Why existing investigations are not enough

Multiple investigations may be underway, but none will necessarily tell the full story. We may get a lot of details and still lose the forest for the trees.

Police investigations are too narrow and take years. They ask whether specific individuals committed specific offences that can be proven to a criminal standard (i.e., beyond a reasonable doubt). But a criminal investigation will not answer the broader democratic questions: How did the list move from an authorized recipient to unauthorized hands? Who accessed it? Who copied it? Who used it? Was it used to support petition, referendum, party-building, separatist, or electoral activity? What legislative choices made this possible? What institutional safeguards failed? What reforms are required before Albertans vote again?

An RCMP investigation into fraud may be necessary. It is not sufficient.

Privacy investigations are also limited. Alberta’s privacy commissioner has already identified a major gap: Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act does not apply to political parties. The commissioner has said this leaves her office without jurisdiction over personal information from the List of Electors if it was disclosed by a political party, and she has renewed her call for Alberta to bring political parties under privacy law.

Elections Alberta’s investigation is essential, but it, too, is constrained. The Chief Electoral Officer has said the agency is working “within the limits of the legislation.” He has also explained that Elections Alberta cannot simply investigate whatever looks suspicious. It now needs “reasonable grounds to believe an offence has occurred” before starting an investigation — a much higher threshold than the previous “grounds to warrant” standard and, in the CEO’s own comparison, similar to the level of evidence police would need to make an arrest.

Elections Alberta cannot investigate itself

To be clear: Elections Alberta appears to have acted once it had the evidence it believed it needed. It issued a cease-and-desist letter on April 28, sent representatives to a Centurion event on April 29, and obtained an emergency injunction from the Court of King’s Bench on April 30.

Could it have acted on earlier credible tips? Absolutely. Why it didn’t: that should be a core question of a public inquiry.

The agency is the custodian of the List of Electors. It distributes the list to authorized political actors. It seeds copies of the list to track misuse. It is responsible for enforcing parts of the Election Act. It is constrained by legislation passed by the government. It is now defending its own response, its own mandate, and the integrity of the democratic system it administers.

As both investigator and witness, Elections Alberta needs support, not scapegoating. The best way to provide that is through a public inquiry with a broader mandate than Elections Alberta itself possesses.

This is bigger than the separatist petition

Much of the reporting thus far has focused on how the scandal impacts the prospects of the separatist movement. Centurion’s own stated purpose was to identify and recruit Albertans supportive of separation ahead of a possible referendum. A court injunction is preventing Elections Alberta from validating those signatures, and a ruling later this week could put a stop to the petition altogether.

This leaves us to trust the petitioner, Stay Free Alberta, that it has the requisite number of signatures to meet the threshold for a referendum. For a variety of reasons, not limited to the doxxing scandal, we should be skeptical of their claim.

The premier should bear all of this in mind as she decides whether or not to legitimize the separatist cause by holding a referendum.

I have argued elsewhere that referendums in general, and a separatist referendum in particular, should not be held under these conditions.

But if Premier Danielle Smith is intent on proceeding, she should first call a public inquiry into the voters-list scandal and allow the commission to do its work before Albertans are asked to weigh in on the merits of separation.

Were seeded names used to pad the petition? Did anyone use the List of Electors to find, target, pressure, or mobilize voters in ways the law does not allow? Did any organization use privileged electoral data to accelerate petition collection? Were voters’ home addresses used to build political networks outside the law? Who had access to the database before the injunction? Was it downloaded, scraped, copied, or redistributed? Does anyone still have it?

These fundamental questions cannot wait years for criminal or civil proceedings to wind through the system. And Elections Alberta does not have the capacity or authority to investigate them.

Everyone should welcome an inquiry

A public inquiry is a truth-seeking process and all parties to this scandal should have an interest in clearing the air.

The premier says she wants accountability. No better way than to call an inquiry empowered to get to the bottom of the scandal.

The UCP says it did not provide the List of Electors to any unauthorized outside group or individual. Good. It should welcome an inquiry given the close connections between separatist leaders and their party.

The Republican Party of Alberta says it will cooperate. Good. It, too, should welcome an inquiry.

The Centurion Project says it relied on a third-party data provider and will comply with Elections Alberta’s investigation. If so, they should welcome an inquiry.

Despite social media posts confirming that they encouraged their own canvassers to use the Centurion app, the Alberta Prosperity Project and Stay Free Alberta say they had no improper connection to Parker’s database or any unauthorized use of the voters list. Fine. They should welcome an inquiry to make their case to the public.

Separatist organizers and canvassers say they did not use the List of Electors to boost, manipulate, or fudge the signature collection process. Good. They should welcome an inquiry to clear the air.

Those alleging that the NDP, Elections Alberta, or any other actor has behaved improperly should also welcome an inquiry. Allegations should be tested with evidence, not amplified through insinuation.

Why a legislative committee will not work

Some may suggest sending this matter to a committee of the Legislature. That would be a mistake.

A legislative committee would almost certainly break down along party lines and turn this into partisan theatre. Government MLAs would defend the Premier. Opposition MLAs would attack the government. Witnesses would be selected, framed, and questioned through partisan lenses. Their credibility would be dragged through the mud by the opposing side. One wonders who would agree to participate voluntarily in such a spectacle.

This scandal is too important for that.

When democratic processes and institutions are under threat, the repair process must rise above ordinary partisanship and processes.

Most importantly, an independent public inquiry would — beyond the setting of its mandate — be free to investigate without direction from the government.

This moment requires that level of power and independence.

What the inquiry should examine

The terms of reference for the public inquiry should be broad enough to connect the dots, but focused enough to report quickly.

The inquiry, itself, would take months to complete its work. Six, at least. Which means it would not be completed in time for the October 19 referendums.

I would go further to suggest no referendum or provincial election whatsoever should be held until we have cleared the air on the voters list and addressed concerns through reform.

Any nefarious actors — domestic or foreign — could otherwise exploit our vulnerability. This would throw any result into question, further eroding losers consent.

At a minimum, the public inquiry should examine the following.

First, the chain of custody. How did the List of Electors move from Elections Alberta to authorized recipients, and from there to any unauthorized users, vendors, apps, databases, campaigns, organizations, or volunteers?

Second, the scope of exposure. Who accessed the database? Who searched it? Who downloaded, copied, retained, scraped, exported, or redistributed it? Were copies created before the injunction? Where are they now? (The answers to these questions might well be “we have no way of knowing,” but even that information is important for Albertans to hear and lawmakers to base reforms upon.)

Third, the political use of the data. Was the list used for petition collection, referendum organizing, party recruitment, separatist mobilization, fundraising, voter contact, or any other political purpose outside the law?

Fourth, the role of organizations and individuals. What role, if any, was played by the Republican Party of Alberta, The Centurion Project, Alberta Prosperity Project, Stay Free Alberta, third-party advertisers, app developers, data vendors, political consultants, campaign volunteers, Take Back Alberta figures, other partisan actors, or anyone else connected to the matter? Could Elections Alberta have done more to protect the voters list, given its current mandate and resources?

There are other questions that may be hived off to a post-inquiry commission, given the time sensitivities involved. These could include:

The adequacy of the law: Did Alberta’s Election Act, Citizen Initiative Act, Referendum Act, privacy statutes, and political-finance rules provide sufficient protection? Did recent legislative amendments weaken Elections Alberta’s ability to investigate? Are penalties strong enough? Are rules around political data clear enough?

The capacity of Elections Alberta: Does the agency have the resources, staffing, technology, forensic capacity, and legal authority required to protect the List of Electors and investigate its misuse?

The privacy-law gap: Given that political parties hold some of the most sensitive information about citizens, why are they excluded from Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act? What would it take to regulate political parties’ collection, use, retention, disclosure, and destruction of personal information?

Remedies for harmed Albertans: What immediate protections should be offered to vulnerable people whose addresses may have been exposed? What notification, support, relocation, legal, or security remedies are necessary?

Premier Smith should call it now

On behalf of all Albertans, Premier Smith should demand the accountability she says we deserve.

The premier should not wait for the RCMP. She should not wait for lawsuits. She should not defer to Elections Alberta. She should not send this to a partisan committee.

She should call a public inquiry now.

If the government is serious about protecting democracy, it should want the full truth to restore confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes and institutions.

If the government is serious about the integrity of referendums (one of its policy tools of choice), it should want to know whether the petition and referendum process has been irrevocably compromised.

If the government is serious about restoring public trust, it should embrace an inquiry with the power to compel documents, hear testimony under oath, and report publicly.

If the government is serious about privacy, it should want to know how the personal information of nearly three million Albertans became searchable online and how it could be used to undermine our democratic processes and our safety.

This is a written version of a talk I presented at the Civil Society Forum in Edmonton on April 26, 2026. For a shorter piece, see my op-ed in the Edmonton Journal.

There’s no shortage of commentary about the crisis of liberal democracy in Alberta these days.

You can find it in columns, op-eds, academic articles, podcasts, and conference keynotes. Words like backsliding, authoritarianism, and populism get thrown around with increasing urgency.

And not just in my own Substack. People from across the spectrum are chiming in.

Yet, for many Albertans, none of it lands. Democracy isn't top of mind as a public concern, and obvious transgressions have failed to dent the government's popularity.

Not because Albertans don’t care about democracy. And not because they’re either resigned to or satisfied with the way things are going. But because the conversation often starts in the wrong place.

It starts too high up in the ivory tower. We need to find ways of bringing the conversation to ground level before it's too late.

Drinking the Sand

The torrent of democratic sins seems relentless in Alberta. Every week brings a new controversy, a new outrage, a new “unprecedented” move. It’s overwhelming.

And it’s intentional. The government’s Trumpian flood-the-zone strategy is designed to drown the media, distract the public, and disorient opponents with a deluge of anti-democratic reforms that have Alberta looking more like a red state by the day.

Academics often reach for high-level theories and comparisons to make sense of the situation.

When typical people are overwhelmed, though, they stop trying to make sense of each individual event. Instead of high-minded models, they rely on partisan cues that solidify an “us versus them” mentality. Or they turn away from politics altogether.

Many come to see backsliding as politics as usual — a dog-eat-dog competition not simply for votes but for control over the rules of the game. This only quickens the democratic descent, as government torques the system to prevent their “enemies” from taking over.

Citizens feel forced into accepting the situation because there appears to be no alternative.

To borrow a line from The American President (1995) people don’t “drink the sand” because they’re thirsty. They drink it because they don’t know the difference.

3 Simple Rules

If we want to stall the democratic backsliding, we have to show Albertans it’s sand they’re drinking. And that water is available — that democracy is not simply a mirage.

To do that, we need to stop trying to engage everyday Albertans in abstract debates about the state and fate of “liberal democracy.” We need to stop incessant semantic infighting over whether the government is populist, authoritarian, far right, or fascist. Albertans get lost in those academic debates.

Instead, we need to get back to basics and explain what’s really at stake.

Whether you’re on the right, the left, or in the centre, most people can agree the answer to all questions should be “yes”.

Underneath those simple rules sit a handful of democratic norms. Things like:

• the rule of law (no one is above or below the law)

• checks and balances (those in power must restrain each other)

• free and fair elections (voters choose governments, not the other way around)

• treating opponents as adversaries to be defeated (not enemies to be eliminated)

• independent institutions that buffer citizens from government power

• a government that works for everyone (not just members of its voter base)

You don’t need a political science degree to grasp these principles. They’re common-sense expectations.

And they give people a much simpler way to make sense of Alberta politics.

Let’s walk through the rules of the game and how the Alberta government is breaching them more and more by the day.

1. Everyone Must Play by the Same Rules

This is the most basic expectation in any democracy: no one gets special treatment, and no one gets to rewrite the rules simply because they don’t like the outcome.

But that line has been crossed several times in Alberta. Recent examples include:

• Defying or selectively applying constitutional norms, most notably through legislation like the Sovereignty Act.

• Judicial interference, raising concerns about whether court cases are being treated independently.

• Unequal treatment of different groups of Albertans or regions, depending on the government’s judgment of their value to society.

• Changing rules after the fact. Whether around gifting and donations, access to information, petitions, or electoral boundaries, when existing rules prove inconvenient, the government has simply rewritten them in their favour.

2. Government Must Be Accountable

In a democracy, governments have to explain themselves, face scrutiny, and accept limits on their power. From the separation of powers to federalism to responsible government, our institutions are built around the principle that elites will hold each other in check and that we will hold them accountable through elections.

These institutions are eroding in Alberta today. We’ve seen:

• Limits on legislative debate, including the routine use of time allocation to push bills without scrutiny.

• End-runs around institutional checks, such as pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause.

• Attacks on courts, journalists, and watchdogs, including reducing their access and/or resources or undermining their credibility.

• Changes to election rules and processes that raise questions about whether voters are choosing governments or governments are choosing their voters.

3. Government Must Serve the Public, Not Its Friends

The expectation is simple: no abuses of power. Democratic decisions should be made in the public interest, not to reward government allies or punish critics.

According to intrepid reporting, these lines are also being crossed in Alberta today.

• Allegations of insider access and “pay-to-play” politics in the Skybox scandal, raising concerns about who benefits from government decisions.

• Patterns of cronyism in the CorruptCare scandal, where relationships appear to matter more than merit.

• Rule changes that advantage political allies, whether in fundraising, campaign finance investigations, or regulatory oversight.

• Targeting of perceived enemies, including the use of personal information and voting records to intimidate critics.

The flood of anti-democratic measures can be filtered by these three rules. They help us to categorize the transgressions in a way that makes sense of the overall patterns, rather than leaving us lost in the details.

To borrow another metaphor, the rules create three buckets into which we can divide the governments actions, distinguishing their approach from the liberal-democratic practices of their predecessors and counterparts in the rest of Canada.

There is Another Way

The Alberta government’s approach to politics is not normal. Its supporters will say otherwise, but you can remind them that no other governments in Canada are rigging rules to suit their political aims with as much frequency. Other governments may seek to consolidate power in the premier’s office, but none are actively removing checks and balances to abuse their power to this extent. And while other governments pursue agendas that favour their supporters, none have been accused of as much corruption or broken as many laws to go after their opponents.

For generations, this government's predecessors have more or less followed the rules. And when they have transgressed, their own supporters — inside and outside caucus — have disciplined them back into line.

Shortcuts and cheating are appealing. And they can be effective if you convince people to “drink the sand.”

But it comes at a cost.

It replaces shared rules with winner-take-all politics. It turns opponents into enemies. It shifts the focus from how decisions are made to simply who wins and manages to rig the system in their own favour. That, in turn, reduces trust in the system, throwing us into a downward democratic spiral of affective polarization and tit-for-tat politicking like we see in the United States.

Referendums Break the Rules

Referendums are one means by which governments manufacture that sort of consent and foster polarization to do it.

On the surface, referendums seem like the purest form of democracy: “letting the people decide” directly.

But referendums can also simplify complex issues into blunt yes/no choices, amplify emotion, and be used strategically by leaders to bypass institutions, shift responsibility, and consolidate power.

In extreme instances, referendums can be used to circumvent democratic institutions, entirely.

Populists will remind us that not all governments who convene referendums are Nazis like Carl Schmitt. But it’s important to remember that referendums are not inherently virtuous. While some are motivated by a desire to ratify important legal or constitutional changes by having the public endorse a particular course of action or legitimize a new political order, many are held for strategic reasons instead.

These strategic referendums change the rules of the game by using the pretense of public engagement to do an end run around:

• the legislature, undermining our system of responsible government and elite accommodation;

• the normal policymaking process, which involves consulting experts and those most directly affected by the policy in question;

• the various means through which minorities and the government’s critics are protected from the tyranny of the majority (including the courts).

Instead, strategic referendums are designed to concentrate and consolidate power in the hands of the premier by removing internal checks on their power, shifting the political agenda away from issues of top concern to most citizens, and using public opinion as leverage in negotiations with other governments.

These hallmarks are all present in the Alberta government’s proposal to host a series of referendums this fall. As I have argued elsewhere, Albertans have the chance to weigh in on far more than the policy proposals being advanced. They can help return the province to a rules-based form of politics by voting “no” across the board.

If they don’t, we can expect more governing by referendum in the future.

Getting Back to Basics

If we want to strengthen democracy in Alberta, we need to meet people where they are and give them a simple, durable way to make sense of what they’re seeing.

It’s an academic’s job to answer whether Alberta has reached the tipping point between liberal and illiberal democracy. (Spoiler: we have.)

Without filtering our politics through those questions, Albertans can be forgiven for assuming sand is the only thing left to drink.

The majority recommendations add two ridings in Calgary and one in Edmonton, and make the difficult adjustments that Alberta’s population growth now demands.

By contrast, the minority proposal from the two UCP-appointed commissioners relies far more heavily on hybrid urban-rural ridings while mitigating against the loss of rural seats.

This is, to my knowledge, the only time in Canadian history that a dissenting opinon has been included in a boundaries commission report. These are typically consensus documents.

Proponents of the minority report would have us believe this is a rural versus urban debate, or that it centres around genuine disagreements over what it means to be “effectively represented.” Even casual observers can see it for what it is: an attempt to gerrymander Alberta’s electoral map to the advantage of the governing party.

I say this not simply as an academic or a citizen, but as someone who had the privilege of chairing Edmonton’s first citizen-led boundaries commission. Through that process, I learned that redistricting is about far more than drawing lines on a map. In fact, given the strict parameters of the process, commissioners don’t actually have a lot of latitude to pull out the sharpie and conjure up new borders.

Rather, when done right, redistricting involves a great deal of public engagement. Beyond esoteric or partisan considerations about whose vote should count more or less, it’s about listening to residents’ views about representation and communities of interest.

In engaging with thousands of Edmontonians, our commission found that people can live with compromise. They can live with trade-offs. What they cannot live with is the suspicion that the rules were bent after the fact to protect one side.

And that’s what gerrymandering is: when governments stop letting voters choose their representatives and start choosing their voters instead. This is endemic to the United States. Alberta should not take us further down that road by caving to the minority report writers.

There are worrying signs that the UCP may not take this approach, however. They have made a habit of reforming democratic institutions in ways that erode citizens’ access to effective representation. After establishing new voter ID laws, the government announced mandatory citizenship markers on provincial ID, explicitly tying the change to preventing election fraud for which there is no evidence. Redistricting and voter verification rules are different tools, but they express the same political temptation: to narrow, sort, and control the electorate in the false pursuit of “electoral integrity” or “fairness”.

The first step should be to reject gerrymandering and accept the recommendations of the boundaries commission. The second should be to pursue larger reforms to the redistricting process.

To prevent this sort of thing from happening again, Alberta’s redistribution process should be made non-partisan, not merely bipartisan. Right now, the province’s commission is structured so that two members are nominated by the opposition and two by the government, with only the chair standing above that split. We have better models available.

• Manitoba uses an independent boundaries commission made up of the Chief Justice, the Chief Electoral Officer, and ex-officio university leaders, with public hearings and no party-nominated members.

• Federally, Canada uses independent commissions in each province, chaired by a judge, with the other members appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons.

• In England, boundary commissioners operate outside direct ministerial control, with judicial and open public-appointment elements.

• In Australia, redistributions are decided by an augmented Electoral Commission composed of electoral officials and statutory office-holders, not party nominees.

Alberta should lift and adapt from those systems and build a process designed to keep partisan incentives at arm’s length from the very start.

The immediate decision, though, is simple. Accept the commission’s report. Reject the minority map and the hyperpartisan premise on which it is based. Then fix the process so that no future government, of any stripe, is tempted to choose its voters before voters choose it.

In theory, requiring government-issued photo ID to participate in democracy sounds reasonable. In practice, voter ID laws:

• borrow directly from the Trump playbook,

• prevent more eligible voters than fraudsters from participating,

• disproportionately affect the most marginalized groups in our politics,

• reduce the number of options for voters to prove their identity,

• rely on an inflated sense of how many people actually have the necessary ID, and

• overestimate the electoral advantage it confers on right-wing citizens.

As I’ve written before, the UCP’s voter ID laws are a solution in search of a problem. There is little evidence of widespread election fraud in Alberta, but there is clear evidence that stricter ID requirements can prevent eligible citizens from voting — especially those without stable housing, students, seniors, and people in Indigenous and racialized communities.

This also includes rural Albertans, whose government ID is less likely to meet the highest standards (including a residential address).

Which brings us to the challenges facing the Alberta separatist movement.

A lot of rural folks are experiencing the downsides of restrictive voter ID rules first-hand, with many being denied access to the separatism petition. Organizers behind high-profile citizen initiatives — including those pushing for a referendum on Alberta’s future — are encountering the very real procedural and democratic barriers that come with tighter verification rules.

No doubt: these petitions, which require 170,000+ validated signatures to trigger a referendum, should have some sort of signee validation. But they nonetheless depend on an open process. And, deeply flawed and misguided as they are, the values behind “direct democracy” insist that everyone has equal access.

The UCP’s reforms have worked in the opposite direction, restricting Albertans’ ability to participate in petitions, recalls, referendums, and elections by ruling out vouching and other tried-and-true means of proving one’s eligibility to vote.

And the UCP is proposing to go further, adding a question to this fall’s mega-referendum that would, if passed and carried into law, require all Albertans to dig up citizenship documents in order to exercise their fundamental democratic rights.

If you think it’s hard to sign your name to a petition today, wait until you try to vote in the next provincial election.

Ironically, those who appear the most bullish about these voter ID measures (and the other “racist and useless” ones on this fall’s ballot) are also among the least likely to have the proper documentation to participate in those votes.

This, in at least in small part, is why separatists are having difficulty harvesting signatures in rural Alberta. And why right-wing parties in other parts of the world are having second thoughts about bringing in new laws that prevent their supporters from voting.

It turns out efforts by governments to choose their voters don’t always work out as planned.

Readers will know my position on the separatist referendum. I don’t think it’s wise to hold it, and I will cast a “no” ballot if I’m required and allowed to. (I’m fortunate to have a valid piece of ID.) For these reasons, I’m not saddened to hear rumours that the separatists won’t reach their signature target. And anyhow: if they don’t meet their goal, it will not be because of voter ID.

But you also won’t find me talking about leopards-eating-faces. Because there’s something deeper at stake.

Democracy is as much about process as it is about outcomes. The same rules that make it harder for one marginalized voter to cast a ballot can also make it harder for any citizen to meet the thresholds required to be heard. Whether you support separation or not, the principle is the same: a healthy democracy lowers barriers to participation; it doesn’t raise them.

Alberta has long prided itself on a democratic culture that encourages participation from all walks of life. That tradition is worth defending. This fall, Albertans will have a chance to tell the government how they feel about the new voter ID rules by voting “no” to further erosion of ballot access.

As much as the government and its supporters want the October referendum questions to focus on whether you distrust your fellow Albertans, the true question at stake is whether you trust a system that makes it harder for them to participate in the first place.

The UCP has chosen its position. Albertans will need to decide if they agree.

I’d like to tell you that my two-week vacation offered an excuse to unplug and refresh. Alberta politics stand still for no one, however, and my mind remained fixated on our province’s drift away from liberal democracy. This long-form essay is my attempt to make sense of these latest developments, including the UCP’s continued infatuation with governing by referendum.

TL;DR:

• Smith’s “government-by-referendum” isn’t some form of democratic renaissance. It’s part of a broader populist strategy that deliberately sidesteps the checks & balances, compromise, and accountability inherent in pluralism.

• Albertans aren’t choosing the agenda or the framing; Smith is, prioritizing immigration/constitutional fights over what most people actually care about.

• The mega-ballot of 9+ questions in October 2026 will further polarize the province. Without a concerted, pro-pluralist response, the vote will leave Alberta harder to govern and democracy even thinner than before.

The Populist Pattern

As I’ve written extensively before, Premier Danielle Smith has been signalling a new governing strategy in Alberta. Populism has replaced pluralism as the dominant mode of governance, eroding liberal-democratic norms by removing checks and balances on the premier’s power.

On the surface, Smith’s recent conversion to government-by-referendum seems to buck this trend. After all, what could be more “democratic” than letting “the people” decide on matters of public policy?

This is flawed thinking.

First and foremost, “the people” aren’t deciding which topics are prioritized and how the issues are framed. If they were, polls suggest Albertans would prefer to vote on issues like healthcare, the economy, education, and affordability -- all of which they feel the UCP is bungling.

Immigration and constitutional amendments are nowhere near the top of the public’s agenda. And yet, Smith is tabling a slate of questions on those topics this fall.

Second, Smith’s use of referendums is motivated not by an altruistic commitment to direct democracy. Rather, it is strategic and highly politicized -- designed to hold her party’s divergent factions together by dividing them from the rest of the province.

This will have serious ramifications for her ability to govern Alberta once the dust settles this fall.

How did we get here, and what does it mean for the future of democracy in Alberta and Canada?

Throughout 2025, Smith’s government changed laws to make citizen-initiated referendums easier to trigger. This opened the door to a referendum on Alberta independence. Alongside that ballot, the premier has announced no fewer than nine (9) other referendum questions will be put to Albertans in October 2026. This one exercise will feature more referendums in one day than the rest of Alberta history combined.

Taking the Easy Route

As a governing strategy -- using referendums as a pressure valve, a bargaining chip, or a substitute for hard choices -- Smith’s approach flies in the face of pluralist policymaking. Rather than bringing many voices to bear in a consensus-building process, referendums shrink democracy to its thinnest form: one question, one side wins, one side loses.

By contrast, pluralism starts by accepting stubborn facts of modern life: we seldom agree, there are many sides to complex issues, and majorities are hard to construct as a result. In other words, society is made up of many competing groups with legitimate differences. We disagree over values, interests, identities, and lived experiences. Good policy is therefore messier, often involving well-considered tradeoffs and elite accommodation.

In that world, pluralists don’t seek a single, obvious, commonsense “public interest.” For them, politics consists of continuously negotiating a contested, constantly-evolving common good. That means policy outcomes rarely satisfy the wants of any one group, but they can be accepted by all as legitimate if the process is fair, flexible, accountable, and constrained by checks and balances that prevent any one faction from dominating in perpetuity.

Populism, by contrast, frames politics as “the people” versus “a corrupt elite.” It treats the public interest as self-evident, and it locates that truth in the leader who claims to embody “real people.” In this way, populists tend to favour minimum winning coalitions over the broader common good. They use referendums as such: strategically-framing questions so as to manufacture outcomes that favour 50% +1.

Just as the policy cycle idealizes the pluralist approach to public policy -- with its commitment to public engagement, expert opinion, deliberation, and evaluation -- referendums are the epitome of populist policymaking. There is no need for legislative debate or scrutiny by the courts when the leader picks a question and lets the people decide (emphasis intended).

In this sense, referendums sit uneasily with pluralistic principles that demand meaningful citizen engagement and clear accountability. They are crude instruments, offering elected officials a tempting escape hatch: “Don’t blame us: the people chose.” Instead of the government, they place responsibility at the feet of a faceless majority, often at the expense of voiceless minorities. By their very binary nature, referendums divide citizens rather than bring them together around workable solutions.

Convenience and Strategy

Canada’s own history is instructive. We’ve occasionally used referendums to engage citizens on foundational, long-term questions like military conscription and secession, the sort that ought to require explicit popular consent. But those cases are rare for a reason. Referendums are by definition divisive affairs with little room for the sort of negotiation and nuance required in pluralist societies.

More commonly, populist governments like Smith’s reach for referendums out of convenience or strategy.

Convenience referendums can end deadlock inside a governing party or cabinet. Instead of doing the pluralistic work of persuading colleagues, negotiating trade-offs, and taking responsibility, leaders offload the conflict onto voters. Danielle Smith’s referendum questions about the role of immigrants in Alberta society appear to fit this bill.

Strategic referendums, meanwhile, are often designed to produce “leverage” -- to strengthen a leader’s hand in negotiations with other governments. Like Jason Kenney’s referendum on the equalization principle, many of Smith’s constitutional referendum questions are strategic in nature: designed not to achieve actual outcomes (those would require the federal government to agree to cede jurisdiction, which is unfathomable), but to gin up more distrust in a “corrupt elite” outside the province’s borders.

But strategic referendums often carry unintended consequences. Just ask Kenney or David Cameron, whose attempts to provide a safety valve for the expression of populist grievances within their own parties ended up emboldening the very far-right forces that ousted them. On the eve of his departure, Kenney remarked that the “lunatics are trying to take over the asylum.” He neglected to note that he handed them the key by dabbling in populism.

Kenney’s referendum also shows that, once you open the door to province-wide votes as routine instruments of governance and intergovernmental relations, you normalize high-stakes, identity-laden campaigning as a way to move policy. You incentivize actors to simplify, polarize, and engage in disinformation rather than build consensus and ensure the greatest good for the greatest number.

And -- after the policy decision is made -- you make it harder, not easier, to govern a pluralist society where any durable solution must be continually negotiated across an even more divided populace.

The Hard Work of Pluralism

By comparison, pluralism depends on institutions that force politics to be more than a shouting match between 50-plus-one and everyone else. When they are functioning well, legislatures and caucuses compel public reasoning, compromise, and accountability. Independent officers and courts protect rights and constrain arbitrary power. Federalism requires negotiation across jurisdictions.

Navigating these checks and balances takes patience, time, effort, and diplomacy. Populists like Smith frame these brakes as obstacles to “the people’s will.”

Pluralism asks a lot more of our leaders than populism does. It asks them to do the hard work: to negotiate, to build consensus and buy-in, to explain trade-offs honestly, and to accept blame when decisions are unpopular if necessary. In a diverse province, and a diverse federation, that is the job of each premier.

The irony is: if Danielle Smith is successful in gaining the leverage she seeks through her nine referendums (and counting), she will still need to do the hard work of implementing the things she’s promised. That will mean building the very consensus to pass laws and achieve unanimous consent among all ten provinces and the federal government that she’s currently avoiding -- or, worse yet, making all but impossible through her actions and rhetoric.

Worse yet, if Smith fails to deliver, those who voted “yes” on her 9+ questions may turn to avenues beyond direct democracy to achieve the ends she’s promised them.

So where does this leave us?

The Paths Ahead

In the coming months, the growing batch of referendum questions will pit Albertans against each other. This polarization could cleave along the conventional lines of left vs right, NDP vs UCP, or progressive vs conservative. That’s certainly in the premier’s best interests, as it would help to hold her party together internally.

But these ideological-partisan dividing lines don’t align well with the questions at hand. Particularly the one on separation.

Like moderates and centrists, progressives and conservatives alike see value in immigrants’ contributions to Alberta’s society and economy. They are also suspicious of xenophobic scapegoating and attempts to tear apart Confederation.

In other words, the vast majority of Albertans -- from all sides of the political spectrum -- are pluralists. This puts them at odds with the populists who might vote “yes” in Smith’s referendum package.

These pluralists have several options.

1. They can sit out the referendums out of principle, hoping that a low voter turnout will dissuade Smith from pursuing any of her proposed policies or strategies for lack of a firm mandate.

2. Alternatively, pluralists can sit by passively while populists dominate the referendum campaigns. Whether out of complacency or apathy, they can allow things to play out as they will, choosing to participate (or not) in the eventual votes.

3. Or pluralists can mount their own “no” campaigns -- either separately or in unison. The former will result in a cacophony of voices, each of which may resonate with a different segment of the population. A unified campaign would require coordination and a willingness to put aside traditional ideological and partisan differences.

Either way, pluralists should avoid treating these votes as a normal exercise in democracy. This referendum package is not simply an isolated effort to secure consent on a policy agenda or leverage in some game of constitutional cosplay.

It is a referendum on an approach to governance -- a way to manufacture legitimacy while dodging the institutions that test ideas, protect rights, and force compromise.

If Albertans reward that method with a string of “yes” votes, they will not be “taking back control” from elites. They will be handing more control to a premier who gets to draft an even longer list of future questions, set the timing, and avoid blame or claim ownership of the outcomes, all while ignoring or shirking responsibility for the conflicts and consequences that will inevitably follow.

The real question, then, is not which boxes Albertans will tick on the historically-long ballot, but whether they are willing to defend the democratic habits that make disagreement livable: deliberation, restraint, and accountability.

If Smith insists on making October 2026 direct democracy month, Albertans can make it a referendum on how we want to govern ourselves. “Yes” supports the populist shortcut of dividing “the people” into winners and losers and calling that democracy.

A “no” vote is an endorsement of the shared rules and mutual respect that have made our province the most prosperous in Canada and our country, the envy of many others across the globe.

A video of the talk is available here.

Thank you very much for inviting me to the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. It’s a real pleasure to be here.

I bring greetings from Treaty 6 territory, in what is now northern Alberta. I want to start there because the topics we’re discussing today -- sovereignty, constitutional authority, and the boundaries of political community -- touch directly on treaty rights and responsibilities.

My research is conducted on Treaty 4, 6, 7, and 8 territory, and I’m very conscious of what it means to talk about sovereignty in a place where sovereignty has never been a settled matter.

The research I’m drawing on today comes from our broader Common Ground project based at the University of Alberta. My co-principal investigators are Drs. Feodor Snagovsky and Michelle Maroto, and the study is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

When Daniel Béland invited me, it was on the premise that I respond to the rather broad but vexing question: What on earth is going on in Alberta?

For those who haven’t been following Alberta closely, we’ve been…. having a moment -- one that’s lasted for the better part of the last decade and a half.

It’s difficult to remember a time when Alberta politics were boring. But they once were.

A Progressive Conservative dynasty governed the province for over 40 years. Alberta was known as the bastion of Canadian conservatism.

It was also the heartland of western alienation -- a kind of chronic condition that’s coloured its politics for over a century. Always present, but never really reaching a fever pitch -- at least not to the same degree as Quebec nationalism.

When I returned to Alberta in 2011, I joked with colleagues that it was nice to be back somewhere “stable,” where nothing much happened politically. That illusion didn’t last long.

Working in intergovernmental relations, I served under five premiers in six years. And the turbulence hasn’t subsided; in many ways, it has intensified.

Constant turnover among PC leaders soon gave way to a divided right, opening up space for Alberta’s first-ever New Democrat government in 2015.

This was followed by the reconsolidation of the political right in the form of the United Conservative Party, who returned to power in 2019.

As it turns out, populists were an important part of that new right coalition.

Subordinated to moderates in the PC party, folks motivated by “Making Alberta Great Again” have since assumed control of the UCP -- ousting the party’s founding leader, Jason Kenney, and taking over the Board of Directors.

Alberta separatists are at the head of this populist faction. Under various banners like “Take Back Alberta,” “Free Alberta,” and “the Alberta Prosperity Project”, separatists now wield considerable influence over Alberta government policy by virtue of capturing the party in power.

This includes pushing the province to the brink of a referendum on separation as early as this calendar year.

All of this activity is driving a surge of interest in Alberta separatism. On this slide, you can see the relative salience of the topic in Google Searches.

Peaking in the aftermath of the 2019 federal election -- won for a second time by Canada’s poster child for Laurentian elitism, Justin Trudeau -- interest in separatism waned during the COVID-19 pandemic, only to be resurrected with Danielle Smith’s rise to the premiership in late-2022.

After a lull in 2023 and 2024, it has since surged again.

But interest doesn’t necessarily translate into popularity. For that, we need to examine public opinion polling.

Here, we see little concrete evidence of a surge in support for separatism since 2020. A few points to note:

• Question Wording Matters: Polls asking if Alberta should separate often yield higher numbers (e.g., Leger, Mainstreet) than polls asking strictly how one would vote in a referendum tomorrow (e.g., Abacus, Pollara).

• The “Federal Election” Effect: There are distinct spikes in separatist sentiment immediately following federal election victories by the Liberal Party (late 2019 and May 2025). In between these events, support tends to recede to a baseline of roughly 20-25%.

When you layer these graphs, you can see that, while interest seems to be surging once again, it is not necessarily correlated with a rise in support for the separatist cause.

When we put it in historical perspective -- zooming out to 1995 -- we gain a better perspective. Separatism is both more salient and more popular now than it has been in a generation.

Possibly even higher than it was during the National Energy Program in the early-1980s.

Clearly, something is going on in Alberta.

How do we explain these recent patterns? And what can federalists -- myself among them -- do to push back against the rising tide of separatism?

Here’s what I want you to take away from tonight’s talk.

First: the current separatist moment in Alberta doesn’t simply follow the old “western alienation” trajectory that scholars and journalists used to describe a generation ago. We need to examine public opinion and elite behaviour in a different way.

Namely, second: we need to treat separatism as part of the rise of right-wing populism in Alberta as elsewhere. This lens is crucial to understanding and addressing the grievances driving the separatist movement.

Third: rather than just admire the problem, I’m going to suggest a response: combat populist escalation by reinforcing pluralism — the norms, institutions, and habits that make disagreement workable in a diverse democracy and federation like Canada.

Let me begin with the first claim: this is not your grandparents’ western alienation.

And I want to make that intuitive with an analogy.

Many of you will remember Dallas: a glossy 1980s drama about a wealthy oil family from Texas. The plot is full of power struggles, betrayal, family legacy, and conflicts over money and influence. It’s melodramatic, but the world of Dallas is essentially stable: institutions exist, the system is the system, and the characters maneuver within it.

Now compare that to Yellowstone. It also centers on land, legacy, oil-and-gas adjacent power, and family conflict. But the tone is darker and more resentful. The threats are existential: outsiders are coming, “the way of life” is under siege, and compromise is portrayed less as strategy and more as surrender. There’s more suspicion of institutions -- courts, regulators, media, universities -- and more celebration of direct action and grievance. Those institutions need to be circumvented or infiltrated in order to preserve the prosperity of the Dutton family.

So: same thematic ingredients (land, resources, identity, outsiders) but a different narrative frame. Dallas is about power inside the system; Yellowstone is about defending identity against a system that feels hostile.

That’s a useful lens for Alberta today. Yes, there are continuities with older western alienation. But today’s separatist talk often carries a sharper edge: it’s less about getting a better deal within confederation and more about resisting an illegitimate order that’s portrayed as fundamentally out to get “real Albertans.”

Let’s return to the political science literature.

Traditionally, western alienation has been understood through a simple contrast: the West wants in versus the West wants out.

And historically, the dominant story was “the West wants in.”

In the Reform Party era of the 1980s and 1990s, “the West wants in” meant something quite specific: not withdrawal from Canada, but institutional reform to secure fair representation and influence: Senate reform, decentralization in specific areas, and a stronger western voice in national parties and national decision-making.

The underlying assumption was: Canada is worth fighting for, but it needs to be rebalanced.

By contrast, “the West wants out” -- separation -- was long treated as fringe: more of a protest posture than a governing project.

In her province-wide address to Albertans in May 2025, Danielle Smith alluded to similar divisions. Positioning Alberta as at a crossroads in its relationship with the rest of Canada, the premier divided Alberta into 3 main groups.

• The first were those who support Canada in her words “at any cost.” We might call these the Federalists

• The second camp that she discussed were those who want to leave Canada entirely. She said these separatists were, quote, “not fringe voices to be marginalized or vilified, they are not traitors, they are our friends and neighbors. They are fed up with their livelihoods and prosperity being attacked by a hostile federal government. They are frustrated, and they have every reason to be”.

• Smith’s third camp consisted of what we might call autonomists, or in her words, those who want to forge “a path forward for a strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada”. Those of us here in Quebec today may recognize some of the language. Premier Smith placed herself in this final grouping.

Today’s situation doesn’t fit neatly into the “West Wants In” / “West Wants Out” binary, though. Nor can we easily group Albertans neatly into federalists, separatists, and autonomists.

Public opinion in Alberta is much more complex than the literature or political rhetoric suggests.

Led by my colleague, Feo Snagovsky, our Summer 2025 Viewpoint Alberta survey asked Albertans to respond to a number of different statements about the province’s place in Confederation.

• A vast majority felt that Alberta should remain within Canada, with nearly everyone wanting it to be treated the same as other provinces. These federalist tendencies are strong across the political spectrum.

• There was majority support for what we might label an autonomist approach -- one in which Alberta exercises fuller control over things that the constitution currently permits.

• Fewer were in the mood for absorbing new powers from the federal government.

• Or separating from Canada entirely.

Note, however, that these positions don’t sum to 100. Most Albertans supported more than one -- or none -- of these positions. They don’t fit neatly into discrete categories or camps.

This is true of their provincial and national identities, too.

Asked whether they see themselves as Albertan or Canadian, the vast majority of Albertans answered “both”. Only a small fraction of people in the province see themselves as “Albertan only” or “Canadian only”, with the greatest number seeing themselves as Canadian first and Albertan second.

We see similar multiple identities when we ask Albertans whether they see themselves as progressive, conservative, or moderate. They like to check multiple boxes.

So what do Albertans want out of their relationship with the federal government?

When we ask Albertans what they expect from Ottawa, the answer is: make it work and make it fair. Going from the bottom of this figure to the top…

• Most Albertans express a preference for governments that cooperate -- provincial and federal.

• Many believe there is an important role for a strong federal government in Canadian society.

• More agree than disagree that the federal government has an interest in keeping Alberta prosperous.

• And a majority feel that flirting with separatism is not an effective intergovernmental strategy.

That can sound surprising if your only exposure to Alberta politics is elite rhetoric these days.

In the abstract, Albertans express support for “more provincial control,” especially when the comparison point is Quebec… because Quebec stands as a reference case for assertive autonomy within Canada.

But when you shift from abstraction to specific proposals -- like abandoning key federal institutions related to pensions, policing, or taxation --support gets lukewarm quickly.

According to our surveys, Albertans often like the idea of control… right up until they’re asked to accept the costs, risks, and uncertainty that control can entail.

The so-called “firewall” measures -- ideas associated with the early-2000s “Alberta Agenda” open letter to then-Premier Ralph Klein, signed by conservatives including Stephen Harper -- have generally been unpopular with the public over the last two decades.

What tends to be more popular are bridge-building and influence-seeking strategies: more Alberta influence in Ottawa, Senate reform, stronger western representation in federal institutions, and a stronger federal presence in Alberta -- things like federal jobs and decision-making capacity located in the West.

So if we’re trying to understand separatism today, we should not start from the assumption that the public has moved en masse toward independence or even autonomy.

At Common Ground, we don’t just run surveys; we also conduct focus groups across Alberta to unpack political culture -- what people think is acceptable to say, do, or believe in their environment.

One method we use asks participants to imagine a typical member of their community, draw them, and then “speak through” that character.

And across communities, participants very often draw someone like this: a middle-aged, white, male, blue collar worker -- a guy they often call Joe.

Joe is stereotypically conservative: not in the partisan sense alone, but in temperament. He’s practical. He’s skeptical of politics. He focuses on what affects his family and community. He tends not to think in abstractions -- he thinks in lived experience.

And in 2025, when we probed Joe’s relationship with separatism, we found something important: according to Albertans, Average Joe isn’t a hard core separatist -- but he’s often separatist-curious.

Samuel Goertz led our focus groups last summer and concluded the following from his conversations with hundreds of Albertans in small towns and cities across the province.

Joe wants Alberta to remain in Canada and make it work. But life has been getting harder. And he’s open to the idea that maybe something more drastic is needed to get a better deal… or at least to be taken seriously.

Joe may not attend a separatist rally on his own, but he might go if invited. He might not vote to separate, but he can be tempted by the leverage the threat seems to offer.

That’s important because one of the most predictive questions in the Brexit context wasn’t only “what will you do,” but “what do you think your neighbors will do.”

The sense that something is becoming socially normal or politically correct can help change minds and behaviours

So far, we do not find evidence that separatism has become broadly socially acceptable in Alberta. But we do see this “curiosity,” which creates a potential political opening.

Returning to our surveys, though, we find that most Albertans -- including many separatists -- doubt independence will ever be achieved.

Among the general population, most say it’s unlikely or will never happen.

Even among self-identified separatists, certainty is limited.

That combination -- low confidence but ongoing support -- can nonetheless produce tactical behavior: people may vote for a risky option not because they expect it to happen, but because they want to send a signal.

Some may even take solace in the fact that their so-called “protest” vote is a safe one -- because independence is unlikely, it’s okay to register displeasure.

This raises the questions: just who are today’s separatists and what do they want?

In work I did with Lisa Young, we found that Alberta separatists tend to be driven more by economic than cultural motivations. These included perceptions of economic unfairness, unequal treatment, and federal hostility to Alberta’s core industries.

We also found a strong partisan component: Most Alberta separatists vote Conservative at the federal and provincial levels, and about one-third of both parties’ bases in Alberta consist of separatists.

Demographically, separatists are more likely to be: Canadian-born, long-term Alberta residents, white, male, homeowners, married, private-sector, rural, more religious, and less formally educated.

But here’s the crucial finding: when you control statistically for multiple factors, demographics don’t do most of the explanatory work.

The stronger predictors of separatism are attitudinal and informational.

When you run a larger regression model, four things stand out as primary predicators of separatist sentiment in Alberta.

First: greater susceptibility to conspiratorial thinking.

Second: stronger populist beliefs -- anti-elite and anti-establishment orientations.

Third: heavier daily consumption of far right news.

Fourth: a sense of decline -- the feeling that Alberta’s and Canada’s best days are behind us—and responsiveness to “make us great again” cues.

This is reflected in my work for the Public Order Emergency Commission after the Freedom Convoy. In that report,I described three shared forces linking convoy-style politics and separatist sentiment in Alberta.

First: status loss -- a sense that people who once had respect, economic security, and cultural standing are losing it in the face of globalization. Not just livelihoods, but ways of life. The story they tell themselves goes something like this: we built this place; we powered this country; and now we’re treated as disposable… or worse, as a problem. That feeling can sharpen when energy workers, rural communities, and traditional ways of life are portrayed as backward or morally suspect in political discourse.

Second: factionalism -- what political scientists call affective polarization: intense in-group loyalty and out-group hostility. Opponents aren’t just wrong; they’re enemies.

Third: a death of deference -- deep suspicion of authority, experts, courts, media, universities, and even legislatures. A refusal to defer to these and other institutions -- including election authorities -- when their findings don’t jibe with what they feel is fair.

Those three forces help explain what separatists want.

According to our Common Ground research, which has involved surveys, elite interviews, a social media study, analysis of separatist speeches, and attendance at independence rallies, three corresponding themes have become clear….

Separatists want to reclaim status and identity: a place of honor, respect, and legitimacy for “real Albertans.”

They want to exacerbate factionalism through polarization: drawing a clearer moral boundary between “us” and “them,” Alberta and Canada.

And they want a particular kind of sovereignty: one that places “the people” (again, often narrowly defined) above institutions, constraints, and pluralist compromise.

These slides show the identity work happening in separatist imagery and meme culture online. Again, we’ve seen and heard similar things in other quarters.

We are in the process of tracing the origins of these memes -- most of which are AI-generated. A not insignificant proportion are originating from outside Canada, including the US and Russia.

The visual language is telling: it’s overwhelmingly masculine, frontier-coded, and built around an idealized “Joe Albertan”-- self-reliant, tough, competent, suspicious of outsiders, and morally certain.

Beyond subtle, there are also worrisome themes and exclusionary tropes found in many of the images -- including the sort of anti-semitism found in other far right propaganda.

If you want the distilled version, there’s an AI-generated video series titled “the most Albertan man in the world.” The humor isn’t incidental -- it is a persuasion tool. It makes an identity feel normal, shareable, and socially safe.

The second theme, polarization, extends beyond identity into strategy.

The separatist movement often frames Alberta and sometimes Saskatchewan as the home of common sense and authenticity, pitted against a globalist, socialist, or elitist cabal trying to remake society.

It’s not just “we disagree.” It’s “they’re trying to destroy our way of life.”

That’s a classic populist move: simplify the political world into two camps -- pure people versus corrupt elite -- and treat compromise as betrayal.

Discussions of sovereignty among separatists are more muddied.

Some activists drift toward a “51st state” fantasy. Others insist Alberta should be an independent country. That division matters because it reveals something: beneath the shared grievance, there’s no single coherent institutional endgame. At least not yet.

But regardless of the end-state, the ambiguous sovereignty frame is doing a lot of heavy lifting: it elevates will over rules, and identity over institutions.

In all of these ways, today’s separatism is not simply an extreme version of your grandparents’ alienation. It is something qualitatively different.

If yesterday’s western alienation was driven by a sense that Alberta was being held back, this new version is edgier -- projecting a sense that Alberta is falling behind and more drastic measures are needed to restore its previous status.

So why has it changed, and how has it become so salient?

My answer: populism has paved the way.

To understand populism in Alberta, we have to talk about party structure… especially the creation of the United Conservative Party through the merger of the old Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose party.

The old PCs were managerial, brokerage-oriented, and relatively insulated from grassroots insurgency. That impurviousness is one of the reasons we saw legions of small, fringe right-wing parties come and go during the PCs’ long tenure in office.

The strongest among them, the Wildrose Party carried stronger populist values and a more porous organizational structure.

Jason Kenney’s key decision after the merger was to empower the grassroots -- giving members more authority over policy and leadership than had been typical in Alberta’s PC era.

That proved fateful. It created a system where premiers can be continually pressured by the most mobilized factions at AGMs and leadership reviews -- on COVID response, on sovereignty, and, now, on separatism.

This creates incentives to play to the hardest core of the party’s base, and disincentives to govern on behalf of all Albertans.

Let me give you an abridged political history to show how fast this populist insurgency captured -- and displaced-- the conservative establishment in Alberta.

The story starts after the 2019 federal election, when separatist sentiment spikes and talk of “independence” surges in Alberta. In response, Jason Kenney launches the Fair Deal Panel in 2020 -- a structured outlet for grievances and a search for autonomy “fixes,” from pensions to other provincial levers.

In 2021, Kenney follows with an equalization referendum -- mostly symbolic, but intended to signal leverage and take the edge off the movement. Then, during the pandemic, Kenney loses control of his party to internal insurgency and resigns -- an early warning that Alberta’s new conservative coalition had become highly vulnerable to grassroots pressure.

In 2022, Danielle Smith becomes premier, pursuing a minimum winning coalition strategy that put her base front and centre. As her first bill, she introduces the Sovereignty Act, a sharper, more confrontational posture toward Ottawa.

2023 and 2024 were comparatively quiet on the legislative and intergovernmental fronts. But the Smith government became mired in a multi-billion dollar health scandal -- CorruptCare -- revelations over which continue to this day. Critics claim that Smith’s focus on picking fights with the rest of Canada is a distraction from the controversy.

In December 2024, Trump openly muses about Canada as a “51st State,” which adds a new and unsettling frame to sovereignty talk, including within Alberta’s separatist ecosystem.

In April 2025, Mark Carney becomes prime minister, and Smith responds by issuing nine conditions for avoiding a national unity crisis. In May 2025, her government relaxes referendum rules and advances an “Alberta Accord” -- a more explicit set of policy demands that insist Ottawa stay out of Alberta’s backyard and pave the way for a new pipeline to the West coast.

June becomes a pressure test: there’s the Olds–Didsbury by-election (in which the upstart separatist Republican Party of Alberta has a shaky showing), and the government launches the Alberta Next Panel. Chaired by the premier herself and orchestrated politically out of her office, AlbertaNext shifted from consultation about the province’s place in confederation toward mobilization and persuasion to pursue more radical approaches (including an Alberta police force and pension plan, and stricter controls on immigration).

By summer 2025, changes to the referendum rules resulted in dueling petitions -- federalists organizing a ‘remain’ petition alongside separatists seeking to spark a referendum on independence. More on that in a moment.

In fall 2025, Smith’s government uses the notwithstanding clause four times, reinforcing a governing style that prioritizes majoritarian will over institutional restraint. In October, the Forever Canadian (federalist) petition succeeds.

In November, Ottawa and Alberta sign a Canada–Alberta MOU to explore a new oil pipeline to the West Coast, and later that month the UCP AGM showcases intensified separatist influence inside the governing party. They now control a majority of Board positions.

By December, referendum rules are relaxed again, preventing the Chief Electoral Officer from referring potential referendum questions to the courts. This removed the final roadblock to a separatist petition.

And that’s where we are now: in 2026, the independence petition is circulating -- not as the culmination of a Quebec-style party-to-referendum path, but as the product of populist pressure campaigns working through and increasingly within the governing party itself.

This is where the comparison to Quebec is useful.

The classic Quebec sovereignty path is: build a separatist party, win elections, govern, and then hold a referendum.

Alberta separatists’ path looks different: it’s more populist than sovereigntist in the institutional sense. It uses pressure, petitions, internal party politics, and social movement techniques to drag a governing party toward escalation.

The pressure started with the development of the Free Alberta Strategy -- championed by Danielle Smith before she rose to the premiership and supported by her future chief of staff and executive director. This quasi-separatist manifesto eventually inspired the AlbertaNext town hall series.

But even Smith’s populist group was outflanked. Led by Jeffrey Rath and the Alberta Prosperity Project, the UCP faction took over the party from the inside and has succeeded in getting the premier to remove many barriers to an independence referendum in 2026.

In sum, avowed federalist Jason Kenney’s fateful decision to make the UCP populist party did more to advance the cause of separatism than his attempts at creating a safety valve could address.

And Danielle Smith’s lowering the barriers to referendum-style politics has further changed the incentive structure in favour of far-right populists like Jeffrey Rath.

This new institutional context rewards groups that can mobilize outrage quickly. It encourages performative constitutional brinkmanship. And it normalizes the idea that you can use referendums as negotiating tactics without stable rules about what follows.

Lessons from Kenney and Smith bring us to the last takeaway this evening: our response shouldn’t be “more populism.” It should be strengthening pluralism.

Pluralism is neither about loving nor eliminating conflict. It’s about making conflict governable.

Pluralism and populism are not necessarily opposites, but they do represent divergent approaches to managing difference in democracies and federations like Canada.

Pluralism assumes society is made up of competing groups with legitimate differences. Politics is the ongoing work of negotiating a contested common good. The main obstacle to achieving this is the concentration of power in the hands of a few -- or the breaking down of checks and balances that keep our leaders accountable.

By contrast, populism frames society as “the people” versus “the elite.” Politics is about achieving “the public interest,” which is treated as obvious and embodied in the leader who claims to represent the real people. The main obstacle is a corrupt establishment blocking commonsense solutions.

Those frames don’t just describe different modes of politics. They encourage and justify different kinds of behavior.

A crucial difference is how the two paradigms treat means and ends.

Pluralists place a great deal more emphasis on means than populists do. For a pluralist, a suboptimal outcome is nonetheless legitimate if the rules were followed. Viewing the common good as constructed not inherent, they abide by the maxim that we should aim for the greatest good of the greatest number. Even if that means compromising to achieve consensus.

On the other hand, populists tend to view processes as illegitimate if they do not serve what they define as the public interest. A good outcome is one that meets the needs and wants of “the people,” whose interests are embodied in the leader. In this way, populists tend to emphasize ends over means, breaking norms if not formal rules provided they can achieve their goals.

When it comes to improving Alberta’s position in (or out of) Confederation, pluralists and populists take different approaches.

In forthcoming work with Gala Palavicini, we describe four broad orientations: two pluralist and two populist. These correspond with the survey responses I discussed earlier.

1. The Federalist approach aims to ensure Alberta remains in Canada and is treated symmetrically—like any other province.
   

2. The Autonomist approach: holds that Alberta should remain in Canada but assert greater control over powers it already has.
   

3. Denialism: holds that Alberta should stay in Canada but take on powers Ottawa currently holds—often by rejecting federal legitimacy in practice.
   

4. While Separatists: believe Alberta should leave Canada.

The first two align more naturally with pluralism; the latter two align with populist logic.

Each carries its own risks that need to be mitigated through a balanced approach.

Given these divergent forces, what do we do?

First: strengthen federalism institutionally -- regularized First Ministers’ meetings, stronger intergovernmental machinery, and real western representation inside national parties and appointments.

Second: bolster legitimate autonomism -- including reforms like strengthening the Fiscal Stabilization Fund so have-more provinces don’t feel abandoned in economic downturns, and exploring asymmetrical arrangements where they make sense -- without pretending the Constitution is optional.

Third: deter denialism -- procedural clarity, judicial review when necessary, and clear red lines about what is and isn’t constitutionally acceptable.

Fourth: resist the temptation to quell separatism by opening up “safety valves.” Referendums and petition politics aren’t costless when the rules are vague and the stakes are existential. The logic of escalation is real: today’s maximum demands become the minimum demands of tomorrow. Given the state of public opinion in the province, a firm stance against separatism would not just help preserve the federation; it would be politically expedient, as well.

I will close this final policy section with two cautions.

First: it is important that we not further polarize Albertans into choosing their province over their country. Or vice versa. Our research shows most don’t want to choose. For many, it really does feel like choosing between parents.

Second: federalists should avoid defending the status quo. “Remain”-style politics is a trap if it sounds like you’re asking people to accept a situation they don’t like. Anti-separatism needs to offer a reform agenda -- a better federalism, not just “shut up and stay.”

So, returning to the three takeaways:

Modern Alberta separatism is more than simply your grandparents’ western alienation. The public opinion landscape is more complex, more mixed, and more identity-driven than the old “in/out” story implies.

Populism has paved the way to separatism -- through party structures, mobilization incentives, and elite signaling.

And pluralism offers an effective response -- because what’s at stake is not only unity, but the democratic norms that make unity and diversity compatible.

Thank you. I’ll stop there. And I look forward to your questions.

Suffice it to say, routine abuses of the rule of law, stripping of human rights, removal of checks & balances, overuse of closure to shortcut debate, attacks on electoral integrity, the erosion of constitutional and civic norms, the dismantling of intermediary institutions, outright corruption… my Substack is full of examples of how the province is drifting further away from liberal democracy by the day.

Instead, I’d like to focus on what ordinary Albertans can do to reverse the trend. Starting today.

The Populist Illusion

Uprooting populist power means understanding its source.

Populists like Danielle Smith don’t just win elections or implement their far-right agendas by mobilizing their base. They win by convincing everyone else that their base is bigger than it is.

That’s the core of the populist playbook: take a relatively small, loud, aggrieved group and sell them as “ordinary folks” — the real mainstream — while painting everyone else as out-of-touch elites, special interests, or enemies within.

Make everyone think that the aggrieved group is too small to control everything but too big to resist.

This power play works because of two powerful social dynamics.

First, pluralistic ignorance: lots of people privately disagree with the government’s direction, but assume they’re in the minority because all they see are loud supporters and silent skeptics.

Next, the spiral of silence: the more people think they’re alone, the quieter they become. The quieter they become, the more universal the government’s support appears.

Populists need people to believe “everyone” is on their side and that resistance is futile. To reverse our drift away from liberal democracy, democrats and pluralists of all stripes need to make it clear that this is simply not true.

That’s where you come in.

A Holiday Menu for Democracy

Think of this as a menu, not a homework checklist. You won’t do all of the things that follow. But you can do some of them. And you should do something. Now.

1. Make your dissent visible

Pluralistic ignorance dies in the daylight.

Say what you think about the Smith government’s assault on liberal democracy, out loud. Tell friends, family, coworkers, teammates, and fellow congregants when and how you think the government has gone too far.

And put it in your own words. Don’t simply re-post someone else’s thoughts. Use your own name when it’s safe. A short, measured post under your real identity (“I’m a lifelong Albertan and I oppose X because…”) counts for more than a dozen anonymous rants or “shares”.

Normalize disagreement. When people hear “I don’t buy this” from someone who looks and sounds like them, it challenges the populist illusion of unanimous support.

2. Lean on your MLA

Backsliding accelerates when elected officials think no one is paying attention, or when they only hear from their blindly loyal base.

Call, email, or visit. Announce yourself as a proud constituent and a potential (or past) supporter.

It works.

Ask your MLA where they stand on attacks on courts, minority rights, public institutions, or the latest salvos in the “culture war.”

Ask specific, on-the-record questions.

Share what you hear with your friends and the public. If they dodge, say so. If they show backbone, thank them publicly. Pressure cuts both ways.

3. Show up and be counted

Crowd size is a core status symbol in populist politics. If you want to shake their confidence, out-number them.

Go to rallies, town halls, and demonstrations that defend democratic norms, civil liberties, and pluralism — even when they’re not “your” issue.

Bring friends, colleagues, and family. A carpool is more powerful than a quote-tweet.

This next part is key: wear blue and wave Alberta flags. Don’t concede provincial symbols to a single faction. Populists love wrapping themselves in Alberta regalia; it matters when a bigger, more diverse crowd does the same.

Visible, flag-waving crowds of ordinary Albertans who oppose backsliding are kryptonite for populist narrative.

If there are no public rallies, do the same in your public / social media commentary. #WeAreAlbertan is a powerful countermessage to the populists’ #IAmAlbertan mantra.

4. Support people on the front lines

The UCP is deliberately targeting vulnerable groups they feel are unworthy of widespread support (or unlikely to receive it).

Believe and support trans kids, racialized communities, parents, physicians, migrants, public servants, educators, librarians, and others who find themselves at the sharp end of new laws or campaigns.

Ask: “What do you need from allies?” and follow their lead. Sometimes it’s amplification, sometimes accompaniment, sometimes just not leaving them alone in a fight.

When attacks come — online pile-ons, smear campaigns, bad-faith laws — counter-message and show solidarity, publicly and privately.

Per points #3 and #10: Make sure you identify the victims as real Albertans.

Back trans-rights activists, youth, unions, civil liberties groups, journalists, academics, watchdogs, librarians, school trustees, Indigenous organizations, and community advocates who are doing the slow, unglamorous work of resisting illiberal policies.

That can mean donating, volunteering, or simply showing up when they ask for support at meetings, hearings, or picket lines.

When the populist mob targets these groups, step in.

When they win even small victories — like forcing changes to bad policy or exposing abuses — amplify those wins. It shows that resistance works.

5. Support independent media and analysis

Populists work hard to discredit “mainstream media” and expertise. Don’t let them succeed by neglect.

Subscribe, donate, share. Support outlets and creators who do serious, fact-based reporting and analysis on Alberta politics.

If you have a subscription and want to share “gift” stories, make sure to encourage people to take out a subscription.

Add your own frame when you share. “As an Alberta parent/worker/rancher/student, here’s why this matters to me…” helps cut through the noise better than just dropping a link.

6. Practice pluralism in your own conversations

You can’t fight populism with purity tests. Especially around the family dinner table or at holiday parties.

Listen first. Many people are skeptical of the government but wary of “the left,” “the city,” or “academics.” Meet them where they are. Ask why they’re frustrated, what they want to protect, what they fear losing.

Look for shared values: fairness, honesty, security, opportunity, prosperity, dignity. Start there, even if you end up disagreeing on policy.

Remind them that there are pluralist parties across the political spectrum, and that populism is not the only alternative.

This is how you model a politics where disagreement is normal and opponents are not enemies.

7. Engage in party politics, not just elections

If reasonable people abandon party politics, extremists have a clear path to power.

Join a party (or stay in one) and push back against illiberal instincts from the inside. That can mean opposing conspiracy-laden resolutions or supporting candidates who respect institutions, courts, and minority rights.

Show up for nomination meetings and policy conventions. These low-turnout events often decide who gets a megaphone and what they’ll say into it.

You don’t have to agree on pipelines or tax brackets to insist on some basic democratic red lines.

8. Build pluralist alliances

This is bigger than left vs. right.

Most of the polarization we see today isn’t between progressives and conservatives. It’s between both of those groups (and moderates and other pluralists), on one side, and populists on the other.

Seek out genuine conservatives, centrists, greens, social democrats, moderates, and libertarians who share a commitment to the rule of law and pluralism.

Work together on concrete campaigns: defending academic freedom, resisting attacks on the courts, protecting civil liberties, safeguarding fair elections, pushing back on censorship and book bans.

When people see a farmer, a lawyer, a union member, a small business owner, a pastor, and a student standing together, it undercuts the idea that only “radicals” oppose illiberal policies.

In truth, the populists are the radicals.

9. Pace yourself for the long haul

Democratic erosion is a slow grind. So is rebuilding.

Set boundaries. You don’t have to doomscroll every development to be a good citizen. Choose a few actions you can sustain.

Find joy and community. Potlucks, music, pick-up hockey, faith gatherings, mutual aid — these are not distractions from politics. They’re the soil healthy democratic cultures grow in.

Keep reading positive and uplifting works, and consider starting a book club. Earlier this year, I posted a reading list to get you started:

10. Step up as an Albertan

This is worth repeating: one of the most powerful things you can do right now is to identify yourself as an Albertan.

Even if you’re not proud of Alberta at the moment.

Even if you don’t match the stereotype of a “real Albertan.”

Especially if you don’t.

When a diverse range of people — urban and rural, Indigenous and settler, new Canadians and families who’ve been here for generations — say #WeAreAlbertan, it punctures the myth that only one type of person belongs here, and only one political project speaks for the province.

That’s why “unusual suspects” matter so much. When a cowboy like Corb Lund, a sixth-generation Albertan rancher and country artist, stands up against coal mining and environmental damage on the Eastern Slopes, he helps clear the path for resistance.

His voice hits differently than mine. Yours will hit differently than his.

Show up in numbers. Wave Alberta flags at pro-democracy events. Change your social media bios and profile pics to show you’re Albertan, too. Claim the symbols and the story of this province for a broader, more generous, pluralistic vision.

This holiday season, don’t just reflect.

Talk. Organize. Show up. Act.

Because the illusion that “everyone” backs illiberal backsliding only survives if most of us stay quiet.

And we don’t have to.

Appendix: Alberta’s Democratically Darkest Year (2025)

Below is a list I’ve been keeping in preparation for some future publications. It’s likely incomplete, so if you spot something I’ve missed, please leave a note in the comments.

February 2025

• Feb 6 — Auditor General launches a probe into health procurement in Alberta Health/AHS, following reporting and allegations of political interference. It’s one of at least six similar investigations, prompting calls for a public inquiry.

• Feb 25 — Peter Guthrie resigns from cabinet out of opposition to the alleged corruption. He’s suspended and later expelled from the UCP.

April 2025

• Apr 11 — Reported directive to route Auditor General interview requests through government lawyers. Critics framed this as chilling/obstruction; government framed it as coordination.

• Apr 29 — Bill 54 introduced: a major package of election-law and democratic-process changes framed by government as “integrity” reforms.

May 2025

• May 9 — Information & Privacy Commissioner finds the government’s FOIP practices non-compliant, raising concerns about systemic obstruction of access-to-information.

June 2025

• Jun 11 — FOIP is replaced by ATIA/POPA, Alberta’s new access-to-information and privacy regime that severely limits transparency.

July 2025

• Jul 4–10 — “Attempted book ban” controversy: Ministerial Order sets provincewide rules restricting/removing certain school library materials; the order is later paused/rewritten after backlash and reported removals.

August 2025

• Aug 1 — Expense receipt disclosure rollback (reducing routine public reporting of government expenses and removing years of posted receipts); reversal came three weeks later, following backlash.
  

September 2025

• Sep 15 — “CAN” citizenship marker on IDs announced (including “election security” framing); later followed by legislation to implement changes.

October 2025

• Oct 27 — Bill 2, Back to School Act: back-to-work legislation and imposed settlement using the notwithstanding clause, alongside compressed debate/time allocation.

November 2025

• Nov 4 — Elections Alberta funding request largely denied amid workload pressures around recall/initiative administration.

• Nov 4 — Committee moves to begin searching for a new Auditor General amid CorruptCare investigation.

• Nov 18 — Bill 9 passed: invoking the notwithstanding clause to shield anti-trans laws from court review. Like Bill 2, it is passed in the middle of the night with time allocation and the premier absent.

• Nov 20 — Bill 13 passed: Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, constraining professional regulators’ governance/discipline and limiting certain mandatory training requirements.

• Nov 28 — UCP AGM passes populist resolutions that threaten liberal democracy and rights.

  

December 2025

• Dec 4 — Bill 14 introduced: tightening ballot access, reworking party/endorsement rules, and centralizing control over citizen initiatives and key justice/election guardrails in the minister/Attorney General. Amended but passed.

• Dec 6 — Premier publicly dismisses judges as illegitimate democratic actors.

Like most conspiracy theories, it presents its adherents with a dichtotomy: premier good, courts bad. Elections democratic, courtrooms elitist. Right-wing folks virtuous, left-wingers villainous.

But that populist pablum leaves out something important:

Canadian conservatives are the ones who helped build this system. And it works to preserve the very values conservatives hold dear.

If you actually take conservatism seriously — not just as a brand, but a genuine governing philosophy — you end up in a very different place on courts and judges than Smith and her populists.

We asked judges to do this job

Judges didn’t wake up one morning and seize power like some kind of mafia.

The Canadian Bill of Rights (1960) was enacted by John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservative government, precisely so courts could refuse to apply laws that violated fundamental freedoms.

Two decades later, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms emerged from years of negotiation among prime ministers and premiers. Judges weren’t at the table rewriting the Constitution. They were assigned a role by elected politicians, many of whom — including Peter Lougheed — are among this country's most venerable conservatives.

So when courts strike down a law or tell a government to go back and rewrite it, they aren’t staging a coup. They’re doing the job we, through our elected representatives, gave them.

If there’s a problem, it’s not that judges exist. It’s that populists don’t like being told “no.”

Common law is judge-made law

There’s a strange ahistorical claim floating around that “judges shouldn’t make law.”

But in a common law system like ours, judge-made law is not a bug; it’s the operating system.

For centuries, conservative lawyers and politicians have defended the common law as:

• Incremental: changing slowly, case by case.

• Grounded: based on precedent, not passing fads.

• Pragmatic: adapting broad principles to messy real-world disputes.

If you suddenly declare that any judicial development of the law is illegitimate because judges are “unelected,” you’re not defending our heritage. You’re attacking the core of the Anglo-Canadian legal tradition conservatives revere.

Liberty needs an umpire

For conservatives, rule of law is supposed to be a core value:

No person — not even a popular prime minister with a big majority or a flagging premier with an activist base — is above the law.

An independent judiciary keeps both in check. You can’t say you believe in limited government and then strip power away from the only institution that can tell the government where the limits are.

Conservatives like to talk about freedom: freedom of religion, expression, association, the right to be left alone by the state.

For those to be more than slogans, someone has to make the call when a government goes too far.

You can absolutely disagree with individual court decisions. Conservatives have done so, loudly, for decades.

But ask yourself: Would Canada be more free or less free if governments knew no court could ever call them on it?

If your answer is “more free,” that’s not conservatism. That’s wishful thinking from a privileged group that thinks they're entitled to be above the law.

Judges are insulated for a reason

Critics say, “Judges aren’t accountable — you can’t vote them out.”

True. And that’s the point.

We already have an institution that lives and dies by opinion polls. It’s called the legislature.

Courts are built differently because their job is different. We want them thinking in decades, not news cycles; applying principle, not party platforms.

That doesn’t mean judges are unaccountable. They’re appointed by elected governments. They can be removed for misconduct. Their interpretations can be overridden by appeals and other constitutional means.

For ordinary laws, legislatures can usually rewrite statutes more carefully to meet constitutional standards while pursuing their goals.

That’s a quieter, more restrained form of accountability. The kind conservatives prefer to mob rule or mobster-style bullying from the premier's office.

Removing the Gates

In an executive-dominated system, courts may be the only real check on a premier's power. This is especially true when members of her own party willingly give up their own power to hold her government to account in the legislature.

None of this means courts are perfect, or that every decision is wise, or that judicial culture can never drift into fashionable ideology. Conservatives absolutely should critique decisions on their merits. They should appoint judges who respect precedent and restraint. They ought to debate how rights are interpreted and balanced.

But there’s a world of difference between criticizing a gatekeeper and removing the gates entirely. Between arguing with the referee and denigrating them so you can call the game yourself.

The UCP approach — delegitimizing courts as “undemocratic” — doesn’t conserve anything. It weakens faith in institutions, trains citizens to trust only “the people” as embodied in the premier of the day, and clears the way for unchecked executive power.

That’s not Canadian conservatism. It's radical populism.

It's time for conservatives to defend the courts — not as an indulgence for progressive elites, but as a hard-won, deeply conservative safeguard of Canada’s democracy.

In Alberta, Bill 2 – the Back to School Act – ended a province-wide teachers’ strike by imposing a contract, ordering more than 50,000 teachers back to work and invoking the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to strip their right to strike. Just as striking was the process: government MLAs raced the bill from first reading to final passage in under 12 hours, slashing debate and leaving most caucus members silent as fundamental rights were overridden.

On Parliament Hill, stories once again surfaced about MPs feeling trapped in a party-first culture that rewards message discipline over genuine debate, constituency representation and cross-party problem-solving. The incentive structure in Ottawa nudges them to repeat talking points, avoid dissent and treat disagreement as disloyalty – all symptoms of the hyperpartisanship that contributed to a floor crossing and, likely, a resignation on the eve of the federal budget.

These aren’t isolated tales. Together, they form the backbone of our argument in No “I” in Team: Party Loyalty in Canadian Politics.

The book shows how party discipline has evolved into message discipline – not just telling legislators how to vote, but what to say (or not say) – and how institutional rules, political pressures, social dynamics, and digital technologies now condition elected representatives to put partisan interests ahead of their own judgment and their constituents’ voices.

Join the conversation at the book launch

To keep this conversation going, Alex Marland and I are pleased to be joined by The Honourable Rachel Notley in marking the book’s release with a public launch event.

We’ll unpack what Bill 2 tells us about power plays in Canadian politics, explore how hyperpartisanship is reshaping Parliament, and invite you to think through how we can restore space for real representation inside our parties.

🗓️ Friday, December 5
🕓 4:00–5:30pm
📍 Alfred Sorensen Community Hall, University Commons, University of Alberta

Details and RSVP information are available at bit.ly/TeamBook25.

To learn more about the research behind the book and how to get a copy, visit partyloyalty.ca.

Doug Firby took up my advice and contacted his MLA, Tanya Fir (Minister of Culture). His account of the ensuing events is here and definitely worth the read.

Days later, Doug got a strange phone call from one of his fellow constituents — a complete stranger. That constituent had also called Fir’s office to voice their displeasure with the government’s use of the notwithstanding clause.

Fir had personally returned that constituent’s call, promising to pass their concerns onto caucus and cabinet. All’s fine to this point. In fact, its encouraging to hear that an MLA is actually doing the calls herself rather than staffing it out.

Until…

Fir forgets to hang up the phone.

The voicemail message continues, giving us insight into what happens inside MLA offices when a constituent calls. You can listen to it here.

“One of Ours”

During the ensuing exchange, Fir instructs her staff to note in the call-tracking spreadsheet that the constituent is “one of ours.”

We can infer that Fir considers the constituent to be in the Conservative camp (perhaps a member, supporter, or voter).

This is not unusual. Many tracking systems require staff to identify the partisan leanings of the callers. Those that align with the MLA’s party are given more weight, especially when they are critical of the party’s position. Those that come from supporters of another party are given shorter shrift — dismissed as being complaints from chronic dissenters.

“The Next Motherfucker”

This is where the voicemail message takes a twist.

In a turn of events reminiscent of the Trump administration’s Signal chat controversy, Fir went on to include Doug Firby's contact information in that ill-fated voicemail to the constituent. Who is Firby, you ask? A retired journalist with a Substack account.

Firby had also called Fir to complain about her government’s use of the notwithstanding clause, which explains why the MLA had called out his number to her staffer. He was next in line for a call-back.

Fir should be held accountable for releasing Firby’s contact information, no doubt.

But it gets worse.

In turning her staff’s attention from the first constituent to Firby, Fir indicates it’s time to go onto “this next motherfucker.”

This comment is notable for a few reasons:

• It indicates that Fir’s list of complaining constituents is lengthy. There must have been a lot of “motherfuckers” to go through.

• It illustrates frustration and perhaps some gallows humour after a long day of call-returns.

Who among us with a public-facing role hasn’t referred to our clients and stakeholders in similarly colourful language? I know I have. That doesn’t make me a bad person.

It does mean I must face accountability if those comments are released publicly, though. There would be trust to rebuild with my constituents. And my boss would be subject to questions about whether this attitude is endemic to the entire organization.

What did we learn?

A few takeaways from this episode:

• When the call is seen as coming from inside the Conservative house, UCP MLAs pay greater attention. A simple, “I voted for you last time” can go a long way.

• UCP MLAs are feeling the pressure. Many no doubt feel they can weather the storm, thinking that the “motherfuckers” will eventually move on to other things. If Albertans feel strongly about this government’s use of the notwithstanding clause, they need to keep calling and encourage others to do the same.

According to the UCP and its defenders, the answer is some combination of we can [ok, sure] and we have to [no, you don't].

The real answer is captured in the flowchart below:

The UCP wants to strip Charter rights without lessening the harm on Albertans.

Whether that makes them lazy, impatient, or vengeful, the result is the same.

Pre-emptively using Section 33 doesn’t just allow the government to do an endrun around the courts.

It removes their obligation to defend their laws as being necessary and justified in a democratic society.

They are also not bound to ensure the law is proportionate and minimally impairs the rights in question.

These limitations exist under s1 of the Charter, using the Oakes test.

These “reasonable limits” keep governments from taking the easy way out, taking shortcuts, or taking out their frustrations on their “enemies.”

Take the UCP.

Whatever their motivation, the notwithstanding clause allows them to tailor laws for maximal impact on those they’ve singled out.

First, they targeted teachers and unions. They went beyond mandating arbitration (which s1 allows) to impose an agreement on the UCP’s own terms and remove their collective bargaining rights for years.

We’re told a similar fate awaits members of the trans community in Bill 9, which is expected to be introduced on Monday.

If these moves are successful, the UCP may feel emboldened to target other groups with similar abandon. Their list of resolutions for this month’s AGM gives us a sense of who might be next:

As I’ve said previously, governments can use the notwithstanding clause. But just because you can doesn’t mean you have to or should.

For further reading on this topic, see my earlier posts.

Days later, the government appears poised to do it again, this time to protect its anti-trans legislation.

My responses to those questions remain the same:

1. they can use the notwithstanding clause,

2. they’re not required to, and

3. they shouldn’t.

This post expands the third point into a fuller argument, making the case that Alberta’s government is breaking with the province’s own conservative tradition — the Lougheed Doctrine.

His approach dictates that Albertans are entitled to openly debate our human rights and to have our governments defend any breaches of those rights as being justified in a free and open democracy.

The UCP’s excuses for using the notwithstanding clause — “because we can,” “because we have to,” and “because we say so” — do not meet Lougheed's standards.

Albertans deserve more from their government and must put pressure on MLAs to take back their power under the constitution.

Should they use s33?

As with the teachers’ strike, many Albertans will side with the government on the policy outcomes they wish to achieve with their anti-trans legislation.

Interestingly, polls show that not all of these folks support the use of the notwithstanding clause. In the broader public's mind and conservative tradition, ends do not always justify means.

Unlike them, some UCP defenders let blind partisanship or their distaste for unions, courts, or other target groups trump a more principled approach.

Others dismiss both the means and ends out of hand. To them, the notwithstanding clause should never be used, and there are no circumstances under which rights should be curtailed.

I am not part of that “never 33” group. Like the premiers who insisted in its inclusion in the Charter in the first place, I see value in legislatures having the final say. I've defended the use of s33 in the past, even when I have disagreed with the desired policy outcome.

Like me, many Albertans are caught in the middle between those who defend and oppose the government at all costs.

Fortunately, Peter Lougheed provided us with guidelines for how to approach these issues.

The Lougheed Doctrine

Premier Lougheed helped secure section 33 as part of the Charter, but he consistently argued for restraint in its use.

In a 1991 lecture and subsequent reflections, Lougheed favoured parliamentary supremacy over executive or judicial overreach, and reactive use (after legal avenues were exhausted) over pre-emptive invocation. He also foresaw using it defensively against federal laws, not proactively by the provincial government against Albertans.

David King, one of Lougheed's ministers captures the Alberta cabinet discussion as follows:

Using the Lougheed Doctrine, governments should only invoke the notwithstanding clause if they have offered a full-throated, public defense of their law as placing “reasonable limits... as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” (Section 1 of the Charter).

Meeting the s1 standard is important as it requires the government to demonstrate that their actions are pressing, minimally impairing, and proportionate. This is known as passing the Oakes Test.

The UCP could make the effort to defend the legitimacy of their laws in this way. Other governments have, and have done so successfully. But those governments chose minimal impairment -- not executive overreach or vengeance -- to guide their policymaking.

By using the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively — which, again, they can but need not do — the UCP is not simply admitting that their laws are breaching Charter rights and bypassing the courts. They are further admitting that their laws cannot be justified in a free and democratic society.

The government need not defer to the courts to live up to the Lougheed Doctrine. Parliamentary supremacy is an important, conservative tradition — one that Lougheed championed (notably in reference to legialatures not unchecked executives).

But parliamentary supremacy does not require cutting out the judiciary entirely. Good government respects the role of all three branches, and governments should make a good faith effort to meet the s1 standard when curtailing Charter rights.

If, after failing to meet the s1 standard in court, the government still wishes to proceed, s33 remains available to them, subject to full review by the legislature.

Whatever one’s view of a given policy outcome, sprinting to section 33 — fast-tracking legislation that imposes longstanding, far-reaching limits on fundamental freedoms and foregoing a s1 defense — is very hard to square with Lougheed’s “last resort” ethos.

What it means for governments

Pre-emptive use of Section 33 (especially while invoking closure) is not just a legal, political, or policy choice; it’s a cultural shift in how a government understands its responsibilities in a constitutional democracy.

Populists and radicals relish that sort of approach. But conservatives bristle at such breaks from tradition.

If premiers and prime ministers no longer feel the need to craft laws in ways that respect s1 of the constitution, this opens the door to rights abuses as a matter of routine policymaking. They will no longer need to consider ways of minimally impairing peoples’ rights and freedoms when they feel the policy ends justify any legal means.

What it means for legislators

It is also a massive abdication of duty on the part of Alberta parliamentarians, specifically MLAs in the governing caucus. Built on the very principle of parliamentary supremacy that Lougheed championed, the constitution assigns them the responsibility to protect and define human rights in this province.

To date, UCP MLAs have chosen to hand that power to the premier’s office by tying their own hands through time allocation and refusing to defend Lougheed’s Doctrine in caucus meetings. This is part of a broader trend towards hyperpartisanship that is poisoning our democracy.

What it means for citizens

These MLAs require public pressure to remind them of their duties to the constitution and to the will of their constituents. This means Albertans — a majority of whom oppose the UCP's use of s33 — must continue to pick up the phone and call their MLAs to voice their concerns.

Recent reports suggest it's working, with UCP MLAs taken aback by the public outrage. Keep calling. Call again, and get others to do the same.

When you call, here are some more tips in addition to my earlier ones:

• Speak calmly and in your own words. Don’t speak from form letters or canned lines. And don't threaten. Inform them of the implications of supporting or opposing these bills.

• Tell your MLA you oppose using section 33 to solve policy debates. You need not tell them your own position on these policy issues; in fact, being ambiguous may help convey the matter is one of principle, not left vs right. Governments can resolve disputes without suspending rights.

• If a law is truly needed, demand full debate, a narrow and temporary bill, and fair set of policy measures that could pass a proportionality test without an override.

• Ask them to oppose the anti-trans legislation (Bill 9) on these grounds and nullify the use of the notwithstanding clause in Bill 2 (Back to School). A sound law should be able to stand up in the legislature and in vourt, and Albertans are owed a full explanation by the government before they come into effect.

• Don’t go solo: recruit a few others to call, explain the stakes to people who don’t follow politics and those who agree with the government on policy matters. Make this a cross-partisan stand for constitutional norms, not a left-right fight.

Bottom line

“Can they?” Yes.

“Must they?” No.

“Should they?” Only if they honour the Lougheed Doctrine — a conservative commitment to use Section 33 sparingly, transparently, and only as a true last resort.

They are related, but each demands a different kind of answer. Can they is a constitutional question about legal authority: does the Charter permit this move? Must they is a question about necessity: were there viable alternatives that could have addressed the problem without overriding rights? Should they is a normative question about judgment and democratic culture: even if it’s lawful and possible, is it wise or justified in a free and democratic society?

Too often, advocates jump from possibility to inevitability to endorsement in a single breath, as if legal permission settled the matter. It doesn’t.

Just because something is possible doesn’t mean we have to do it, and just because we do it doesn’t make it a good idea.

This post applies that three-part lens to the UCP’s use of the notwithstanding clause (Section 33) in Bill 2 to end the teachers’ strike.

TL;DR

• Can they? Yes. S. 33 is a constitutional power, and pre-emptive use is allowed.

• Must they? No. Canada has multiple recent examples of back-to-work laws without s. 33.

• Should they? Only if other remedies won’t do the job. Bill 2’s design (imposing rejected terms, rushed passage, and a multi-year strike ban) makes it hard to see how the notwithstanding clause was a “last resort”.

1) Can they?

Yes. The notwithstanding clause is part of the Charter itself. It lets legislatures temporarily legislate “notwithstanding” certain rights (s. 2, 7–15), subject to a five-year sunset and renewal, and the override must be explicit. Using s. 33 is therefore not “unconstitutional”. Quite the opposite. It’s a constitutional power with guardrails.

Some argue you must wait for a court ruling before using s. 33. That’s not how the clause has operated in practice. Political scientist Dave Snow has shown most invocations have been pre-emptive (not in response to a fresh court loss). That’s the predominant historical pattern according to his analysis. Howard Anglin agrees, noting it is only “logical” for governments to pre-empt the courts if they know judges will stand in the way of their policy designs.

What courts will say about limits on how pre-emptive use can occur is an active question now before the Supreme Court of Canada in litigation over Quebec’s Bill 21 (the secularism law). Ottawa is urging the Court to set limits on s. 33 and some provinces (including Alberta) are defending broad pre-emptive use. That case isn’t about strikes, but it does go to the constitutional ground rules for invoking s. 33.

I, for one, agree with opponents of the federal position: ruling out pre-emptive use entirely closes off potentially valid uses of the notwithstanding clause.

Unless and until the Court imposes limits on pre-emptive use going forward, invocations like the UCP’s appear constitutional. For now, can they use it? Yes.

2) Must they?

No. Governments do not have to invoke the notwithstanding clause to end public sector strikes. The UCP had a real choice in this matter.

Just because the courts have established a Charter right to strike under S. 2 of the Charter does not mean that right is absolute. No rights are. They are all subject to S. 1 of the Charter — also known as the “reasonable limits” clause.

This s. 1 route requires the government to pass a narrowly tailored statute and justify any rights limits under the Oakes test.

Under this test, the government must show a pressing and substantial objective, a rational connection, minimal impairment of the rights, and proportionality of overall effects. Back-to-work laws featuring short timelines, essential-service carve-outs, and independent arbitration have successfully been defended on that basis.

In 2021, the federal government introduced Bill C-29 (Port of Montreal Operations Act) without invoking s. 33. The Department of Justice’s Charter Statement openly acknowledged that s. 2(b) expression and s. 2(d) association were engaged, then set out the s. 1 justification: (1) pressing national economic harms; (2) a mediator-arbitrator process that kept bargaining pressure but limited harm; (3) a time-limited, neutral, dispute-resolution structure; and (4) extensive failed attempts at voluntary settlement beforehand.

Likewise in 2018, Ottawa passed Bill C-89 (Canada Post) using a mediator-arbitrator model, again staking its case on s. 1 rather than s. 33.

In legislating the teachers back to work, Alberta avoided the s.1 route and invoked s. 33. This allowed them to impose a four-year contract on teachers — a move that courts have previously struck down in other cases because heavy-handed remedies fail the minimal impairment test.

Critics argue Alberta could have continued bargaining or chosen a binding arbitration model — non-preferred to the government from a policy perspective, perhaps, but well-trodden, s. 1-friendly routes.

I, for one, think the government could have made a solid s. 1 case. Breaching s. 2 rights could be justified as a means of safeguarding students’ schooling, stabilizing the system, and preventing cascading harms.

To put it plainly, the Alberta government had options beyond the notwithstanding clause. Most would have required them to pursue arbitration, though. They chose the path of least legal resistance — one with far-reaching implications for labour rights and collective bargaining in the province.

Said more pointedly: if resort to s. 33 (paired with an imposed settlement) was the plan all along, the preceding “collective bargaining” risks looking largely performative. If that becomes the norm, future rounds may devolve into box-checking exercises rather than genuine negotiations, something labour and management alike should want to avoid.

Whether this is the path of least political resistance remains to be seen. This brings us to the normative element of the debate.

3) Should they?

This is ultimately a values question about means versus ends. Some will applaud the outcome (ending a disruptive strike or crushing a union) and discount the means. Others will condemn the outcome (imposing terms on a union and gutting collective bargaining rights) and so reject the means out of hand.

A useful consistency check is the counterfactual: would you endorse a (different) government invoking s. 33 to impose its preferred outcome on a divisive rights issue you oppose—say, mandatory vaccination during the pandemic?

Beyond a simplistic ends-justify-means approach, it is possible to support the policy outcome (end to the strike) without supporting the process.

For principled proponents of the notwithstanding clause, s. 33 is a constitutional safety valve that preserves legislative supremacy in a system of responsible government. Used sparingly, it lets elected governments — accountable to legislatures and answerable to voters — resolve tensions between rights and public objectives, especially when judicial interpretations don’t reflect local priorities. Its safeguards (an explicit declaration, time limits, open debate, and electoral accountability) deter casual use and remind courts they are arbiters, not policymakers.

For principled critics, the notwithstanding clause lets governments override core Charter protections, like expression and equality, through ordinary legislation, weakening safeguards for minorities and concentrating power in the executive. Bypassing judicial review weakens incentives to craft rights-respecting policy and can license discriminatory laws, heightening social division. Routine or pre-emptive use risks making fundamental rights contingent on transient political majorities.

Alberta’s own conservative tradition (Peter Lougheed’s “last resort” mantra) and the legal community’s warnings point us to a middle road: use s. 33 sparingly, transparently, and only after narrower options are truly exhausted.

In other words, use s. 33 only after you have failed to make a s.1 claim and only with full legislative debate. In ending the teachers’ strike, the UCP fast-tracked the bill through all stages in a matter of hours and pre-empted judicial review. That’s hard to square with “last resort.”

This reasoning drives some to call for explicit rules to be put in place for governments’ use of the notwithstanding clause. I’m not opposed to that approach, but would resist efforts to create a nationwide set of rules. If governments wish to bind themselves to certain guidelines, they can. But they ought not impose those rules on others (unless everyone agrees to a constitutional amendment). Here, I find common ground with political scientist Geoffrey Sigalet.

The “can they” and “must they” questions are far more straightforward, focusing our attention on what is really at stake in this debate.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether the UCP should have invoked the notwithstanding clause to break the teachers’ strike. I wish more folks focused on the means than the ends, but even principled people on both sides have valid points.

Ultimately, S. 33 assigns the public the role of arbiter. If Albertans don’t agree with the usage, they can call on their MLAs to put pressure on the government to repeal the legislation, seek to topple the government through the same sort of pressure, and ultimately send a new set of MLAs to the legislature following an election.