Danielle Smith’s Separatist Mess

Danielle Smith has a separatist problem.

Recent polling suggests that while most Albertans would like their province to remain part of Canada, supporters of her own United Conservative Party want secession.

For Smith, the problem has become too big to ignore, raising the question of how seriously the movement for independence should be taken.

The movement does appear to be growing, both within her base and more generally, and it’s put the premier in a difficult position following the election of Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Last week, Smith said she was not in favour of the province’s separation and would prefer to see a “strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada” — a stance that has alienated some of her most committed supporters.

One challenge for the premier comes from a separatist group known as the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), which has gotten to work collecting pledges for a referendum that would ask “Do you agree that the province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province of Canada?”

While aiming to get the signatures of 600,000 Albertans, well over the threshold required under new rules, the group claims it is well on its way to forcing a referendum based on support for the petition so far.

One leading figure behind it is former Smith supporter Mitch Sylvestre, who issued a blunt warning to the premier.

“If she doesn’t come over to our side, well, there’s going to be a problem,” Sylvestre said this week.

As APP president, Sylvestre sees full independence as the group’s only goal.

“There’s only one path. If you’re looking for an independent Alberta, it will be completely independent, and then negotiation starts with Canada or whoever else comes to the table,” Sylvestre told PressProgress.”

Sylvestre believes the group’s chance of a successful petition drive is “very likely, like 100%,” adding “we have a quarter of a million.”

He said APP events held so far have filled to capacity and that the group has had to turn people away at the doors. Pipelines and energy policy, he said, have been the driving issues turning the province against Ottawa.

The prospect of a referendum on Alberta sovereignty — and its implications for treaty rights — has so unnerved Indigenous leaders and communities that a rally was held at the legislature on Thursday to protest the passage of a law easing the threshold for calling one. The same day, the Onion Lake Cree Nation revived a lawsuit against the government over its 2022 Sovereignty Act, which aims to assert provincial authority over areas of federal jurisdiction.

An Angus Reid survey conducted earlier this month suggested 65% of UCP supporters would definitely vote to leave Canada or would lean toward voting that way, compared to 36% of Albertans overall.

Former Smith allies may be proving to be more of a political force than she can handle, as the question of Alberta independence becomes more prominent than it has in recent memory.

Some observers have drawn comparisons to the gamble taken by former UK prime minister David Cameron on Brexit.

Political science professor Keith Brownsey from Mount Royal University said that, despite friction between her government and the broader conservative movement, “Danielle Smith is a separatist.” Her problem, Brownsey said, is the electorate’s lack of desire to push the issue despite the support from her base, as indicated by the Angus Reid poll.

“It’s more a question of, ‘Is Danielle Smith and her UCP government serious about pushing this?’” Brownsey told PressProgress.

“If we look at the entire electorate, no, the place isn’t serious about it and people oppose it.” He said most people are asking, “‘Are you out of your mind? Why landlock a state of approximately 4.2 million people?’ It would be a disaster economically and socially.”

In 2021, former MLA Rob Anderson launched a policy paper called the Free Alberta Strategy, with the goal of seeing the provincial government pass a “package of reforms that will free Alberta from Ottawa’s overbearing control and restore self-determination for all Albertans.”

It was primarily aimed at insulating Alberta from what it saw as Ottawa’s interference on resource and environmental policy.

Anderson is now Premier Smith’s chief of staff.

The policy plan was co-authored by Barry Cooper, a pundit and columnist who recently floated the idea of Alberta obtaining “protectorate status” from the United States.

Smith has embraced the dangerous rhetoric of the far right many times over the years, often with figures tied to the Alberta sovereignty movement, as well as the freedom convoy.

Until recently, the Alberta separatist movement existed mainly in fringe spaces on the Alberta right, despite a long history dating back to the 1930s under the Social Credit Party. Fuelled largely by myriad grievances with federal government power over resource policies, environmental regulations and gun rights, it grew into a more organized movement through social media following Justin Trudeau’s victory over former prime minister Stephen Harper in 2015.

Roberta Lexier, a Mount Royal associate professor with a focus on history and Canadian social movements, said that while some grievances are legitimate, the underpinning of modern Alberta separatism and independence movements is a broader ideological push towards conservative individualism. She cautions against treating the current wave of popular separatist sentiment as credible.

“Western alienation and western separatism are grounded in real material grievances and always have been. While these issues have always existed since the beginning of Alberta, and to a lesser extent Saskatchewan, separatism is a distraction from the real issues that are facing these provinces in modern times, from inequality to environmental degradation,” Lexier told PressProgress.

“Separatism shouldn’t be given any real legitimacy by media and politicians. The real issues we should be focused on are corporate influence, and the problems of capitalism more broadly.”

Coordinating through social media, Alberta sovereigntists would go on to become a driving force behind the convoy movement.

Connections made during the period of backlash against Covid restrictions led to a loose network of groups and organizations that would eventually team up to bring down Alberta’s previous UCP premier, Jason Kenney, and replace him with Smith.

Cam Davies, a footsoldier for the UCP in its early years who became embroiled in Kenney’s leadership scandals, became a leading organizer for the pro-Smith group Take Back Alberta (TBA).

But he’s now turned on Smith by forming an entirely new entity with electoral aspirations: the Republican Party of Alberta, of which he is currently leader.

Davies, Brownsey said, is a common type of political operator in the province.

“He’s one of these guys that is going to be involved in politics, right-wing fringe groups all his life. We have them all over the place. They’re everywhere. It’s not a movement to be trifled with.”

TBA, led by the bombastic and divisive David Parker, successfully organized its large following to bring Smith to power. Its top members, including Davies and Parker, now have a different path for the province in mind, advocating full separation.

The Chief of Staff to the Premier recently told a separatist activist: “We are the government, we will decide how the referendum goes.”

We will see Rob Anderson, we will see.

— David Parker (@DavidJPba) May 13, 2025

At least until recently, Smith and Parker were close political allies and friends.

ALBERTA SEPARATION HANGS ON THE EDGE OF A KNIFE:

I am writing this with a deep sense of optimism, married to the unshakeable knowledge that the coming years will be the hardest of my life. We have crossed the Rubicon. With the election of Mark Carney and the announcement… pic.twitter.com/eaIiHyYJm4

— David Parker (@DavidJPba) May 15, 2025

Parker’s corporation Zee Media recently received a $20,000 fine from Elections Alberta for making “a prohibited election advertising contribution” by hosting an event with far-right favourite Jordan Peterson.

A look at some of the others banging the drum for separation shows many leading figures in the freedom convoy movement, including influencer Marty Belanger, lawyer Keith Wilson, and columnist Michael Wagner.

Another noteworthy voice for the separatist cause is former TBA organizer and chief financial officer Marco Van Huigenbos, who recently completed a jail term after being convicted of mischief over $5,000 for his involvement in the 2022 Coutts border blockade .

Van Huigenbos, a former town councillor in Fort Macleod, Alberta, had worked closely with Parker before falling out.

On Friday morning, he took to X to call out Premier Smith for what he sees as her government’s intention to suppress the separatist movement, warning of a “showdown between grassroots Alberta and the Laurentian elite in this province.”