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I Hate Watching the Alberta Flag Become a Symbol of Separatism

The blue emblem is no longer neutral here. That’s true for the Maple Leaf too

Earlier this summer, I walked out of the journalism building at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology where I teach and heard a helicopter overhead. I stopped and squinted as it flew toward Calgary’s downtown with a giant royal-blue flag trailing behind.

A half dozen or so people watched with me. We zoomed in with our phones to figure out if this was what we suspected it was—an aerial show sponsored by Alberta separatists using the province’s flag, with its distinctive blue background and the shield from Alberta’s coat of arms.

This is where things stand in 2026 in Alberta, where one might logically assume that a helicopter towing a large blue flag over Calgary is there to tell Canada to shove it.

Earlier this year, Premier Danielle Smith announced that the province would hold a referendum in October to determine whether Albertans should vote to separate from Canada. Ever since, Albertans have been hoisting flags to signal where they stand on the question. Separatists are flying the provincial flag: I saw a truck in Calgary displaying nine of them and drove past a man sitting by the Trans-Canada in a lawn chair surrounded by Alberta flags and a sign reading “Vote Option #2” (referring to the ridiculously verbose second choice on the ballot that could trigger the legal process for the province to separate). The Canada flag—which, during the pandemic, was co-opted by people opposed to public health restrictions and flown right side up and upside down in anger in street blockades and rallies—has been reclaimed by Albertans who want to remain in this country.

I’ve never seen so many Maple Leafs in my own neighbourhood, just north of Calgary’s downtown; within two blocks of my home, I counted sixteen. Houses and apartments have flags or placards in their windows or hanging from their front porches, cars, and patios. Some are hand drawn and others so freshly purchased that they still bear packaging folds embedded in the fabric. My MP, Liberal Corey Hogan, called on Albertans to “pick up [the Canadian] flag”; he later said on a podcast that his office had nearly run out of its annual allotment of flags. In my immediate vicinity, there’s........

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