In the western Canadian province of Alberta, a political battle is playing out on people’s front lawns. Separatists are flying the royal blue Alberta flag, others the red and white maple leaf of Canada to show their support for a united Canada.

It’s all because a populist right-wing political movement wants Alberta to break away from the rest of the country. On October 19, Albertans will vote on whether to have a binding referendum on independence.

“Public opinion polls show quite consistently over the last two years that about 70% to 75% of Albertans want to remain in Canada,” explains Jared Wesley, a professor of political science at the University of Alberta to The Conversation Weekly podcast. “So there’s a lot of confusion around the process and why we’re holding this vote in the first place.”

Separatist sentiment is driven in part by a longstanding sense of western alienation from eastern Canada, fuelled by grievances that the province puts more into the federal budget than it gets back. But the current wave of separatism in Alberta also has links to........

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