For many outside Alberta (and Saskatchewan), the prospect of a referendum on Alberta’s separation from Canada is perhaps perplexing. But such a referendum in Alberta, which is likely to be held, is the logical conclusion of a long historical process that stretches all the way back to Confederation and how the Prairie provinces joined the Canadian federation.
Western alienation
The Prairie provinces initially joined the federation as a colony of Canada. What are today the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were annexed by the Canadian federal government as part of the Rupert’s Land purchase in 1869-1870. This new territory was named the North-West Territories.
The aim was to use the new territory to supply agricultural goods and raw materials for the manufacturing industries in Ontario and Quebec. The colony would then also serve as an expanded internal market for the industrial goods manufactured in those same provinces.
For decades, Canada’s colony in the North-West Territories remained underfunded and underdeveloped. The federal government profited off the sale of land and resource rights while the colony could not afford to develop the infrastructure required to keep up with immigration and settlement.
This situation led to a fierce political struggle for provincial rights towards the end of the 19th century that became intense enough that there were open calls for a revolt in the bourgeois press. An editorial in the Calgary Herald in 1904 declared that the federal government’s treatment of the colony was “quite sufficient to raise another rebellion” (referring to the Red River and North-West Uprisings led by Louis Riel).
Upon finally being granted provincial status, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were still not given rights equal to those of the other provinces. The other provinces (with the exception of Newfoundland) had joined the federation as self-governing colonies, and as such had ownership rights to their land and natural resources.
Though Manitoba was created out of the North-West territories in 1870, and Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905, ownership of their lands and natural resources continued to be held by the federal government. The justification was that the Prairie provinces “owed” the federal government (and the other provinces) for the costs of annexation and colonization of the Prairies, to pay for immigration and settlement, as well as the expansion of the railroad. This is one of the historical roots of Western alienation.
The Western provinces wouldn’t gain land and resource rights until 1930 (when holding those rights was no longer profitable for the federal government). But that did not prevent significant encroachments by the federal government into the provincial jurisdiction of natural resource rights at times.
One of the most well-known instances was the National Energy Program (NEP) implemented by Pierre Trudeau’s government in 1980.
Faced with a global oil crisis, Trudeau’s NEP imposed a series of price controls and taxes on oil products from Alberta. Taxes and duty controls under the NEP discouraged exports and imposed low domestic prices, which meant that the Alberta oil barons were unable to sell their oil at world market prices. They were forced to sell on the domestic market at a steep discount. This effectively meant a redistribution of wealth from the West, mainly Alberta, to the other provinces, especially Ontario and Quebec. The NEP thus exposed the perceived continuing colonial relationship between Ottawa and Alberta.
The NEP also showed that there are effectively two distinct Western alienations – that of the ruling class and that of the working class.
For the oil barons in Alberta, the NEP meant a massive loss of profits. The transfer of wealth from Alberta’s oil industry to the benefit of the manufacturing industries in Ontario and Quebec only reinforced the resentment on the part of the oil barons and ruling class in Alberta at the economic dominance of those provinces.
The working class of Alberta came to resent the NEP because it led to an economic contraction in the oil patch, and ultimately a massive spike in unemployment and a lowering of wages.
This transfer of wealth from the West to the rest of the country continues to this day in the form of equalization payments. A record $26.2 billion is earmarked for equalization payments in 2025-2026. British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan as the “have” provinces won’t receive any of this money while the rest of the provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, will receive payments as “have not” provinces.
But the equalization program is based on the average tax income potential of the provinces, so that every province can provide roughly the same quality of public services. Alberta, as a province with a younger population with higher average incomes will pay more income tax, and be a net contributor, while provinces with more retirees, and lower incomes will be net receivers. The right wing in Alberta presents equalization as if money is taken directly from the pockets of Albertans to pay for extravagant childcare for lazy easterners or heated pools in Quebec. This is not true and not how equalization works. The reality is that public services across the country are severely underfunded, while the ruling class makes huge profits.
Governments in the Western provinces are frustrated at seeing tax revenue flow to central and Eastern Canada, while the capitalists seethe at the sight of profits and wealth subsidizing other jurisdictions.
Historically, the federal government has represented mainly the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie in Ontario and Quebec, and these interests tend to become the primary national interests–often at the expense of the Western provinces. Western alienation is partly rooted in this fact–the Western provinces tend to punch above their weight financially, yet federal policies tend to favour Ontario and Quebec.
Ottawa’s recent protection of the electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing sector in Ontario and Quebec is another example of this. The federal government committed some $23 billion to develop EV battery plants in Ontario and Quebec. Part of this money comes from tax revenue collected by the federal government in the Western provinces.
China has recently massively expanded EV production and is in a position to dominate the global market. To protect the fledgling EV industry and associated jobs in Ontario and Quebec, Ottawa put 100 per cent tariffs on EVs from China (matching U.S. tariffs on Chinese EVs).
Naturally, the Chinese government retaliated. Its response will hurt the economy of Saskatchewan and Atlantic Canada rather than Ontario. The Chinese government implemented a 100 per cent tariff on Canadian canola oil and meal, plus a 25 per cent duty on seafood and pork.
Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe called on the federal government to remove the tariffs on Chinese EVs in order to protect Saskatchewan’s agricultural sector and jobs. Moe was not wrong when he said that the whole situation was “a Western Canadian expense at the benefit of a non-existent EV auto industry in Eastern Canada.”
This whole situation shows why the “Team Canada” approach to the developing global trade war and to Trump’s tariffs fractured along provincial lines. Under the pressure of the global crisis of capitalism, and specifically with the threat of a trade war and breakdown in relations with the United States, the cracks in the Canadian federation threaten to become serious fractures with various provinces moving in different directions to protect their own economies and interests. It is not an accident that the main fault line was between Danielle Smith and Scott Moe in Alberta and Saskatchewan on the one hand and Doug Ford in Ontario on the other.
Western alienation is a very complex phenomenon. The sentiments of Western alienation are genuine and are rooted in real historical, economic, and political processes. Western Alienation is not simply UCP propaganda or simply part of bourgeois ideology out West. It is a deep-seated, widespread sentiment that affects farmers, workers, the whole population as well.
For the working class in the Prairies, the general sentiment of Western alienation in many respects comes down to the fact that people in the West feel left out of the national political process. This in itself reflects the weakness of the Canadian federation and the limitations of bourgeois democracy.
But for the working class, Western alienation is also a question of bread–of wages and jobs. The lack of a left-wing voice that speaks to their interests has meant that over the decades many working-class people in the West, for example oil patch workers in Alberta, began to identify their interests with those of the bosses and the corporations. “What’s good for the business is good for us” became the general sentiment, because it seemed this was the best way to protect jobs and livelihoods. This unfortunately tied the sentiments of many workers to those of the bosses, and a clear class-struggle perspective was lost. This explains why many workers in Alberta are vehemently opposed to anything that might restrict or otherwise harm the oil patch–because they are afraid of losing their livelihoods.
For the capitalists and the oil barons in Alberta, Western alienation comes down to a question of profits and taxation. The ruling class in Alberta and their representatives in the UCP see wealth being transferred from “their resources” to other provinces. For them, Western alienation means a struggle for profits and economic dominance between different provincial wings of the national ruling class; between natural resource extraction in the West versus manufacturing and finance in Ontario and Quebec.
National unity crisis
Premier Danielle Smith has continued in the tradition of right-wing governments in Alberta going all the way back to the Social Credit party and beyond. Over the decades the right wing have mastered the technique of using Ottawa – as well as the other provinces, especially Ontario and Quebec – as pickpocketing boogeymen in order to rally support.
The Alberta right wing has long cynically manipulated the real and genuine sentiments of Western Alienation to further their political agenda. When he was premier of Alberta for example, Jason Kenney attacked the environmental policies and the carbon tax implemented by Justin Trudeau’s federal government, as well as the federal equalization payment scheme. Kenney himself cynically held a referendum on the question of equalization payments in a failed attempt to save his own skin.
Faced with a corruption scandal, a collapsing healthcare system, and the potential for a split in the UCP, Smith has taken this traditional right-wing method to a whole new level.
Figures such as Peter Lougheed, Ralph Klein, Preston Manning, and Jason Kenney played the Western alienation card in their battles with Ottawa, but remained staunch federalists at the end of the day. (As an aside, it should be noted that it is not just the right wing in Alberta that plays this card, Rachel Notley used a similar playbook as NDP premier of Alberta).
Danielle Smith has always had close connections with the right-wing fringe in Alberta. When she ran for the UCP leadership, she was backed by the Take Back Alberta crew – a group which Kenney had called “lunatics” who “were trying to run the asylum.” Since becoming leader, she has faithfully implemented the program of the Free Alberta Strategy by passing the Alberta Sovereignty Act in 2022 and exploring the establishment of an Alberta Pension Plan and provincial police force.
However, this right-wing “fringe” is no longer the fringe. It has come to dominate the UCP, and it has moved in the direction of separatism.
Smith had made it clear in the months running up to the federal election that a Liberal victory would mean an “unprecedented national unity crisis.” Smith represented the first major crack in the “Team Canada” response to Trump’s tariffs.
Doug Ford, wanting to protect Ontario’s manufacturing sector, was in favour of hitting the U.S. as hard as possible. Ford and the federal government seemed interested in implementing export duties on oil exports to the U.S. This move would have hurt the U.S. but it would also hurt Alberta’s oil industry.
Smith saw this as yet another move that would benefit Ontario to the detriment of Alberta’s economy. She therefore made it clear at that time that her government would not tolerate any export taxes on oil or any move that would otherwise harm the sale of Alberta oil to the U.S., warning that any such move would result in a national unity crisis.
She met with Trump on her own and pursued her own diplomatic solution that would benefit Alberta’s oil and gas industry at the expense of the other provinces.
Then, in late March, Smith met with Mark Carney after he won the Liberal leadership and became prime minister. She delivered a list of demands, warning again that if these demands were not met “within the first six months” after the election, there would be a national unity crisis.
What were Smith’s demands on the federal government? They essentially amounted to allowing the Alberta oil barons to do whatever they want, and included, among other things:
- Guaranteeing Alberta full access to oil and gas corridors to the north, east, and west.
- Repealing Bill C-69 (the “no new pipelines act”, as the UCP called it)
- Lifting the tanker ban off the BC coast.
- Eliminating the oil and gas emissions cap.
- Scrapping the so-called Clean Electricity Regulations.
- Ending the prohibition on single use plastics.
- Abandoning the net-zero car mandate.
- Returning oversight of the industrial carbon tax to the provinces.
But, contrary to her words, Smith didn’t wait six months before sparking the national unity crisis herself. The day after the federal election, the UCP government introduced legislation that would lower the threshold of signatures required to spark a referendum from 20 per cent to 10 per cent of eligible voters, as well as grant more time for the collection of signatures (from 90 to 120 days). Smith made it clear that her government would hold a referendum on separation from Canada if the required number of signatures could be achieved.
Smith has publicly said that she does not personally support Alberta separation, but all of her actions since the federal election would suggest otherwise. Smith’s government has established an “Alberta Next” committee to negotiate a new deal with Ottawa and will also host town halls throughout the province to air the grievances of Albertans (similar town halls are now being organized in Saskatchewan as well, where separatist sentiment exists but at a slightly-lower level than in Alberta). Smith has also said that her government won’t campaign against the separatists, giving them a decent advantage as the “no” side is completely unprepared and unorganized.
Smith has always characterized federal environmental regulations as “attacks” on Alberta. It is difficult to characterize federal environmental regulations as “attacks” as tighter environmental controls and carbon taxing are par for the course in most advanced capitalist countries. Besides, Ottawa has in fact rather generously supported Alberta’s oil and gas industry in other ways — purchasing the Trans Mountain project, protections for oil sands projects, generous emissions caps, etc.
Whether she personally wants separation or not, Smith is clearly using the referendum and the threat of separation as leverage to protect the oil and gas industry from the federal government. But other factors are also at play.
Smith tipped her hand when she said “We don’t ask for special treatment or handouts. We just want to be free to develop and export that incredible wealth of resources we have. Freedom to choose how we provide health care, education and other needed social services to our people, even if it’s done differently than what Ottawa has in mind.”
The UCP has relentlessly attacked public services and workers since coming to power in 2019, and Smith has been angling to privatize healthcare piecemeal since becoming premier. Her statement above serves as a clear warning about what an independent Alberta would look like: privatized healthcare, a gutted education system, and social services cut to the bone in a province with zero environmental controls, granting the oil barons a free hand to exploit the province’s workers and resources.
But while Smith’s government is essentially the executive committee for managing the affairs of the Alberta oil barons, the interests of the big oil companies and the UCP government are not always 100% aligned.
While the big oil companies want to see emissions caps dropped and are interested in seeing tweaks to the carbon tax scheme, they are generally in favour of the carbon tax. Firstly, the oil barons understand that some sort of green tax needs to be collected in Canada, otherwise foreign jurisdictions could declare Alberta oil to be “dirty” and collect their own green taxes on their end. The oil barons and the federal government at least generally agree that it would be better for that tax to be collected here rather than somewhere else. Secondly, the oil barons see financial opportunities in carbon pricing and hope to profit from a massive carbon capture scheme.
The oil barons will generally not be in favour of Alberta separation. The Alberta oil barons are big enough players on the world market. They plan their big investments over decades and need political stability to do so. They understand that their interests are better served in the bigger political entity of Canada, rather than a smaller isolated political entity in the form of an independent Alberta.
Board members of ATCO (which includes former Alberta premier Jason Kenney), a big energy and utility company in Alberta, have already expressed this publicly. The big bourgeois want stability for investment and profits, and the talk of separation threatens instability and already has investors nervous.
The driving force behind separation in Alberta is really the petty bourgeoisie – the farmers, small business owners, smaller oil companies and their lawyers, etc. on the periphery of the oil patch. These elements suffer the most from the ups and downs of the oil economy, feel the burden of taxes and red tape the most, and are the most opposed to anything that might smack of a restriction on oil production.
Meanwhile, First Nations leaders have come out swinging against Smith’s referendum plans, saying they violate their treaty rights. At first glance it might seem strange that First Nations chiefs would come to the defence of the treaties that have legally enshrined their historic oppression. But these treaties and their relations with the federal government are the devil they know.
In their own way, First Nations leaders are showing their opposition to the Alberta right wing and the UCP. They were not consulted on the Sovereignty Act, nor on the potential referendum. Among Indigenous people of Alberta, there is a real fear of what an independent Alberta would mean for them. This explains at least partly the strong opposition of First Nations leaders to the proposed referendum.
Some chiefs have correctly criticized Smith for violating treaty rights in other regards, specifically the medicine chest clause, because of Smith’s ongoing assault on public healthcare. But many have focused purely on the legality of the treaties, and the unconstitutional nature of a separation referendum. If the separation movement gains momentum, legalistic arguments based on the treaties (which have been violated many times) will not be seen as an obstacle.
Split in the UCP
There are also more expressly political reasons for Smith to hold the referendum. Recent polls have shown that 65 per cent of UCP voters would vote to leave Canada, or lean toward leaving. Smith has admitted that “if there isn’t an outlet [for separatist sentiments in Alberta], it creates a new party.”
The referendum is in part a cynical move on Smith’s part to prevent the UCP from coming apart at the seams. Smith knows full well that a split in the UCP would give the NDP a better chance at coming to power. After all, the split between the old Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose Party (which Smith led for a time) was one of the elements that allowed the NDP to come to power in 2015.
The question of Alberta separatism could in fact lead to a split in the right wing nationally in Canada. There is already a divide between Danielle Smith and Doug Ford. A divide also exists between Pierre Poilievre and Ford.
The Alberta right wing pinned all its hopes on a Poilievre victory in the recent election. They saw him as their man in Ottawa and believed that he would legislate from Ottawa in favour of Alberta and its oil and gas industry. Interestingly enough, 77% of potential leave voters would vote to remain a part of Canada if Poilievre and the federal Conservatives had won the federal election.
But Poilievre isn’t necessarily in the good books of the Alberta separatists, now a majority of the UCP voters. Poilievre has gone on record and said he would not make any major changes to the federal equalization payment scheme, a major irritant for the separatists. And while he is sympathetic to their “legitimate grievances”, he is opposed to the separation of the province.
This could pose a problem for Poilievre as he is currently without a seat in parliament, and is expected to run in a “safe” Conservative seat in rural Alberta in a future byelection. Many among the separatist right-wing in Alberta already view Poilievre with suspicion, as “just another central Canada politician who sees Alberta as a giant ATM” to quote the National Post.
Playing with fire
In holding the referendum and advancing the separatist agenda in Alberta, Smith is playing with fire. She could find the whole situation blowing up in her face.
It seems likely that Smith is hoping that the referendum on separation will lose, but with a strong minority voting for independence. That way she can use a strong independentist vote as leverage to gain more concessions from Ottawa.
But there are a lot of other elements at play. Given the instability in world capitalism, anything can happen between now and the proposed referendum. Regardless of what Smith personally believes, she is playing a dangerous game. Recent polling shows that 36 per cent of Albertans either want to leave Canada or would lean toward separation.
This is similar to the level of support for independence in Quebec in the lead up to the 1995 referendum where the final result was 49.42% voting “yes” and 50.58% voting “no.” There is also a certain similarity to Brexit, where UK Prime Minister David Cameron expected the yes vote to lose and hoped that the whole issue would then go away. Things did not go as planned.
The potential role that the United States could play also cannot be ignored. Trump continues to express his desire to annex Canada. While the wholesale annexation of Canada seems unlikely at the moment, the prospect of a piecemeal annexation of one or several provinces certainly exists.
Separatists in Alberta in recent years have tended to tie their independence project to the idea of joining the United States. But this was not a real prospect until now. Right-wing commentators in the U.S. have already expressed an interest in having Alberta join the U.S. in the wake of the referendum talk, and coupled with Trump’s annexationist desires there is the prospect of the real involvement of U.S. imperialism in any referendum in Alberta.
Smith seems to be attempting to play 3D-chess in order to gain leverage in her battles with Ottawa. But if and when the referendum is held, she could very well find herself trying to manage separation. And an independent Alberta won’t be in the powerhouse position the separatists dream of.
What position should we take?
The separatist movement in Alberta has always been the domain of the right-wing in the province—usually the fringe right-wing. It has always been associated with a desire to gut environmental regulations, to give the oil barons a free hand to exploit the province’s resources and workers, and to implement severe austerity, privatizing healthcare and cutting social services to the bone.
For these reasons, we say: the working class has nothing to gain from the separation of Alberta. An independent Alberta would be a right-wing nightmare for the working class.
However, in taking this stance, it is important that the labour movement and the left do not make a single concession to “Team Canada”, the Canadian liberal establishment, and the arguments of “national unity”. Unfortunately, both the NDP and the labour leaders have fallen into that trap.
Take Gil McGowan, the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour. In an article for Jacobin, while he explains the roots of this movement and talks about defending the gains of the working class which the UCP wants to attack, he calls the movement “a serious challenge to Canadian democracy,” coins the phrase “Make Alberta Canada Again,” and says that for workers, “Canada is worth fighting for.”
We see similar nationalist arguments with the Alberta NDP, which talks about the “proud history of freedom-loving Canadians” and appeals to join the “thousands of Albertans who are proud to be Canadian.”
Even worse than this, the Saskatchewan NDP has tried to introduce a “Keep Saskatchewan in Canada Act” to make it more difficult to hold a referendum—increasing the threshold for a citizens’ petition from 15 to 30 per cent! Who is really in favour of “democracy” here?
What the NDP leadership and labour leaders don’t understand is that the separatist movement in these provinces is tapping into a real frustration against the Canadian establishment. There are legitimate complaints of the workers in the West against Ottawa, against the federation. If anything, opposing a referendum like the Saskatchewan NDP is doing will only reinforce the movement, and strengthen the image of the separatists as anti-establishment. The failures of “Canadian democracy” are precisely what is pushing many workers to support the referendum.
Over the decades, the right wing in Alberta has managed to manipulate genuine feelings of Western alienation on the part of the workers to bind a part of the working class of the prairies to the interests of the bosses and the right wing. The Alberta separatists and Smith’s UCP government hope to turn the Alberta working class against the working class of the rest of the country. This would be a severe blow to class unity and a severe blow to class struggle across Canada.
But the way to prevent this is not defending the status quo—which is rightly hated in Alberta. This will only strengthen the right wing. Instead, we need to forge an independent working class way forward. The workers’ organizations, including the unions, should fight for the nationalization of the oil and gas industry. This is something both the Ottawa establishment and the oil barons and UCP would fervently oppose. It would therefore expose the fact that the workers and oil barons have totally opposed interests, instead of letting the UCP distract the workers with the idea of separation.
The fact of the matter is that the oil bosses extract massive profits off of the backs of the working class in Alberta and are the real enemy of the Albertan working class. For example, oil and gas companies in Alberta raked in $35 billion in profits in 2023 alone. This is far more than the $3 billion Alberta paid in equalization payments that same year. And, while some of the money from equalization goes to fund social services, the profits of the oil bosses vanish into the pockets of shareholders and executives.
The working class of Alberta feels the squeeze of the global crisis of capitalism like all workers across the country. They know they are being exploited and that things are getting worse.
The problem is that over the decades, the anger of the working class has been misdirected away from the capitalists and their rotten system towards Ottawa, which has ultimately benefited the right wing.
What is needed is class unity—the unity of the working class across the country. The working class of Alberta must reject the right wing’s separatist project and fight, not for Team Canada, not for “national unity”, but fight for the interests of workers across the country. This means fighting against the capitalists and their interests and fighting for nationalization and workers control.
