The Outsize Political Power of Canada’s Western Separatists
https://jacobin.com/2026/05/smith-alberta-separatism-oil-politics
The Outsize Political Power of Canada’s Western Separatists
https://jacobin.com/2026/05/smith-alberta-separatism-oil-politics
3 Comments
Side note, but I hate it when the political discourse refers to Alberta and Saskatchewan as “western” but ignore BC.
Which literally is to the west of those provinces and is the westernmost province (although Yukon does edge further west if we count territories)
BC isn’t fomenting sedition to break away in some stupid Wexit gambit.
I mean, we didn’t call Quebec independence “Eastern Separatists” and let PEI take a hit, right?
Better off calling it Texas North instead of lumping BC in with the Western title.
Or more of a mouthful, but “western provinces with Stanley cup winning teams in living memory” would also be more specific 😉
The skeleton key to understanding why this happened is Smith’s floor crossing.
When oil was crashing, and Alberta’s economy was in freefall, Smith’s framing of the floor crossing was one of unity – she was trying to lead the Wild Rose supporters over to the PC party because she (claimed that she) thought that what was needed was unity. The time for fighting over social policies and lower taxes should be put on hold, and everyone should rally behind Prentice.
I think she expected that her base would not completely follow her, but what she didn’t expect was that the PC centrists rejected her as well. She failed to even secure the PC nomination for the upcoming election. It was a complete humiliation, and it was her reward for what she thought was a move to try to stabilize the politics of the province during a crisis.
So why is she so dead set on standing by the extremists? Why is she willing to risk our reputation, out political health, and our economy to give the extremists what they want? Because when she did the opposite, the *centrists* ripped her apart, and it nearly ended her political career.
Of course, all of this is to say that she values her political career above any principles she may have, but still. That’s the key to understanding her.
> There’s immense overlap between the Alberta separatist movement and the anti–pandemic restrictions crowd that coalesced around Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership campaign in 2022. That campaign was set in motion after former premier Jason Kenney was removed by the party membership for what they viewed both as an insufficiently hands-off approach to Covid restrictions and insufficiently confrontational approach toward the federal Liberal government.
> Credible polling suggests that support for independence has remained stagnant over the past year at roughly a quarter of Albertans, though a majority of UCP voters are in favor. However, Alberta’s ruling party has deep ties to separatists. Stay Free Alberta leader Mitch Sylvestre is the president of a UCP electoral district association in rural northern Alberta. He was honored at last year’s party convention in Edmonton for his fundraising prowess.
Keep these things in mind when anybody tries to compare Alberta separatism to Quebec separatism.
In Quebec, the PQ came together as union of politicians from across the political spectrum who shared independence as their primary goal, despite partisan differences. Separatism in Quebec was fuelled by an organic sense of cultural, linguistic, and historical distinctness that transcended other partisan political divides.
In Alberta, the overlap between the separatist movement and right wing politics makes the two practically indistinguishable.