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Alberta’s Separatists Are Auditioning to Be the Fifty-First State

They promise freedom from Ottawa while courting a US president who wants the province on his map

Should United States president Donald Trump succeed in colonizing Canada, the process would be achieved by means of dividing Canadians against one another—starting with the referendum in Alberta scheduled for October 19.

The referendum was contingent upon the success of citizen-led petitions initiated by three parties: the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), a nonprofit organization advocating for Alberta’s independence; a former Progressive Conservative deputy premier of Alberta, Thomas Lukaszuk, advocating that Alberta remain in Canada; and, indirectly, by Premier Danielle Smith’s government itself through legislation that lowered the threshold for citizen-led referendums and extended the signature period. This approach allowed Smith to straddle political factions within Alberta, and satisfy her base, while maintaining her professed commitment to Canadian unity.

Alberta is in the crosshairs of the far right in the US, and the Trump administration and allied states could well decide to encourage Alberta to separate from the rest of Canada by offering to recognize its independence and providing incentives for it to do so. One might well think, to use Prime Minister Mark Carney’s words, “that will never, ever happen.”

In the past, the idea that the US might seek to break up Canada would have seemed delusional. But we live in an era in which reality is often shaped by the delusions of autocrats and tech oligarchs. President Vladimir Putin’s belief that Ukrainians are descendants of ancient Rus and should therefore welcome annexation by Russia partly justified his costly war of aggression. Faced with a hostile government in Washington, Canadians have to take seriously possibilities that in the past might have seemed far-fetched.

Threats to Canada’s sovereignty matter little as long as Canadians are strong and united. However, the day after the 2025 election, Alberta premier Danielle Smith introduced legislation—the Election Statutes Amendment Act—aimed at facilitating a referendum on Alberta’s separation. Smith also changed the law to allow corporate and union donations in Alberta, reversing the rules put in place by Rachel Notley’s New Democratic Party government in 2015.

Premier Smith said she did not support separation; in fact, she claimed the referendum would be part of a process intended to improve the place of Albertans within Confederation. But referendums have a way of escaping the control of their conveners, as the Conservative prime minister of the United Kingdom discovered when he held a referendum on Brexit. David Cameron thought it was a good idea to give the public a chance to decide an issue that was dividing his own party. The result was an unexpected and costly decision to leave the European Union that was heavily influenced by disinformation and manipulation fostered by rich donors.

Premier Smith was thinking about another analogy—not Brexit but the Parti Québécois in Quebec. Although her stated goal was to prevent the rise of a separatist movement in Alberta, her strategy was similar to that of the Quebec separatists: stoke internal dissent in order to bargain for a better deal from the rest of Canada. In 2022, Smith introduced the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, or “Alberta Sovereignty Act.” The act sought to strengthen Alberta’s hand in relation to the federal government in areas like natural resources, gun control, public health, and education. It would create a framework for the defiance of federal rules “deemed harmful to Alberta’s interests.”

Canadian federalism requires ongoing negotiations between the federal government and the provinces and the territories. Alberta has every right to seek the best possible deal within the Canadian Confederation. The question is how.

Referendums can be meaningful instruments of direct democracy, but they can also be instruments of populist and plebiscitary rule, bypassing the institutions of representative democracy. There was every reason to believe that a referendum on Albertan sovereignty would be more an exercise in populist mobilization than a thoughtful, balanced, and well-designed process of deliberation. Smith’s first step was to introduce legislation to lower the required number of signatures for citizen-initiated referendums to just 10 percent of eligible voters (roughly 177,000 signatures, collected over 120 days). She then launched an “Alberta Next” initiative, which she chaired, with a panel (made up primarily of United Conservative Party elected officials and donors) to hold town hall meetings across the province to mobilize public opposition to federal policies.

Although........

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