Just this past weak, Premier Danielle Smith of the province of Alberta announced that she would ask citizens next October to vote on whether they want to stay in Canada, or hold a referendum to secede. Although, the Premier knows that the vast majority of Albertans would vote to stay in Canada, she argues that in a democracy people should have the right to indicate their preferences. This is despite the fact that a small minority of Albertans actually belong to separatist groups, and secession would result in serious political and economic consequences for the province.
Alberta is an energy rich province, and as such had to deal with past federal governments over issues related to environmental, other provincial and indigenous concerns when it comes to the construction of pipelines to the west coast to transport oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries in Southeast Asia, including China. The dispute with Ottawa over energy development in Alberta goes as far back to the Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s National Energy Program (NEP) enacted in the early 1980s. Following the two oil crises of the 1970s, the NEP had three main objectives: increase ownership of the oil industry by Canadians; price energy fairly for Canadian consumers; and provide Canadian energy self-sufficiency. However, the NEP proved to be a highly controversial policy initiative and sparked intense opposition and anger in Western Canada, particularly in Alberta. The then Albertan Premier Peter Lougheed was a very vocal opponent of the NEP on the grounds that it interfered with provincial jurisdiction and unfairly deprived Alberta of oil revenue. Although the federal government had reached a revenue-sharing agreement with the province, Albertan’s still blamed the program for economic hardships they faced in subsequent years. Indeed, the term “Western alienation” was coined as a result of the NEP. However, provincial revenue losses were primarily affected by the early 1980s recession and a crash in oil prices. Although the NEP was repealed by successive Conservative governments, including the newly formed Reform Party based in the West, the past actions by the federal government still left a bad taste in the mouths of Albertans. This resulted in a lot of frustration on the part of some Albertans who viewed the federal government, especially those under the Liberals, as mistreating Westerners and particularly obstructing the expansion of major energy related projects in Alberta.
Since then, a number of separatist movements have sprung up in Alberta, intriguing U.S. conservatives who believe that they have a lot in common with Albertan values. From time to time, Albertan separation advocates have even reached out to American conservatives to plead their cases for an independent country. For example, separatist leaders reportedly met on three occasions last year with Trump administration officials in Washington, although the State Department and the White House have dismissed those meetings as routine engagements with interest groups. However, it appears that some supporters of President Trump and MAGA activists, most notably Stephen Bannon, have spoken publicly in favour of Alberta separating from Canada. Although a small minority within the independence movement would like Alberta to become part of the U.S., separatist leaders have chosen to walk away from that position as it’s not popular with the majority of the movement.
Currently, the two top federal parties — the Liberals under Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, and the Conservatives under the opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre — are firmly against secession. Carney has sought to reverse the impression that his party wants to stifle Alberta’s growth and has worked with Premier Smith to propose a new pipeline to take more oil from the province to the British Columbia coast so as to ship to Asian markets. Smith has said she hopes the federal government’s change in attitude toward oil will show Albertans that Canada and federalism can work for the province. Americans would do well to avoid promoting Alberta’s secession, as such actions would simply introduce more negativity into already strained U.S.-Canada relations under the Trump administration, and would clearly result in charges of foreign political interference into the domestic affairs of another country.
FROLITICKS 