B.C. could face huge challenges if Alberta declares independence
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A vote for independence in Alberta would divide Canada at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening the country's sovereignty and could pose headaches for B.C.
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The trading relationship between B.C. and Alberta is estimated at well over $30 billion annually and 'Wild Rose Country' is B.C.'s most important economic partner within Canada.
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Ports in B.C. rely on railways, pipelines and highways that cross Alberta to move goods to and from the rest of the country, and there could be enormous challenges if these routes are disrupted.
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Premier David Eby has been reluctant to weigh in so far on the possibility of a sovereign Alberta outside of comments calling for national unity in the face of Trump's 51st state threats.
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However, he's not been shy about calling out his displeasure with outside actors becoming involved.
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'It is a tired trope. It is a waste of time, and it is an attack on the unity that we have right now as a country standing up to the Trump administration, for political, partisan gains,' Eby said in April in response to former Reform Party leader Preston Manning's column in the Globe and Mail suggesting a victory for Mark Carney's Liberals in the federal election could lead to Western secession.
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Conservative Leader John Rustad has been more supportive of Alberta's grievances, saying Carney needs to 'step up to the plate' after his victory.
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The fires of separatism leading up to the April 28 federal election have been exacerbated in the weeks since by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's move to lower the number of signatures needed to trigger a referendum, from 600,000 to 177,000.
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A new Alberta Republican party has also been organizing to get those signatures in time for a 2026 referendum.
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Those developments could cause tension this week as the premiers of B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are meeting in Yellowknife for their annual conference.
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As that meeting began on Wednesday, Eby lamented separatism, without using the word 'Alberta,' saying it's hard to 'imagine a worse time to be tacitly or overtly supporting voices' that want to break Canada apart.
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Stewart Prest, a University of B.C. political scientist, said the challenge for Eby is to balance his belief in Confederation with an understanding of Alberta's, and to a lesser extent Saskatchewan's, concerns they aren't receiving their fair share.
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'If I were the premier, I would be finding ways to say that Alberta is heard and seen as part of Confederation, but also that this federation is stronger for Alberta's presence than if Alberta is separated,' said Prest.
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CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
6 killed, 80 wounded in intense Russian air attacks on Ukraine
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Toronto Sun
2 hours ago
- Toronto Sun
Court rules Trump can exclude journalists from Oval Office
Published Jun 06, 2025 • Last updated 5 minutes ago • 2 minute read Members of the media during a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Jonas Gahr Store, Norway's prime minister, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C, on Thursday, April 24, 2025. Photo by Al Drago / Bloomberg A federal appeals court has ruled that President Donald Trump can exclude journalists from the Oval Office, Air Force One and other 'restricted' spaces based on their editorial decisions, handing the administration a win in its fight with the Associated Press over access. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account In a 2-1 order on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit halted a lower-court judge's order that had restored the wire service's ability to participate in a rotating pool of reporters who cover the president's daily movements. The news agency sued the Trump administration in February when the White House press office started limiting the access of AP reporters and photographers after the wire service refused to update its style guide to rename the 'Gulf of Mexico' the 'Gulf of America' following a Trump executive order. A Washington federal judge's order forcing the White House to reinstate the AP's access took effect April 14 after the appeals court didn't immediately intervene. The AP next could ask the full bench of active judges of the D.C. Circuit to reconsider the panel's order or ask the U.S. Supreme Court to immediately intervene. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'We are disappointed in the court's decision and are reviewing our options,' AP spokesperson Patrick Maks said. Trump called the ruling a 'Big WIN over AP today' on his Truth Social platform. 'They refused to state the facts or the Truth on the GULF OF AMERICA. FAKE NEWS!!! Judge Neomi Rao wrote in the majority opinion that the lower court's decision 'impinges on the president's independence and control over his private workspaces.' The panel did leave in place part of the original order that required the AP to still have access to the East Room in the White House, which was usually open to a broader group of reporters. 'Throughout our nation's history, presidents have held crucial meetings and made historic decisions in the Oval Office and on Air Force One,' wrote Rao, joined by Judge Greg Katsas. 'On occasion, they have welcomed the press to observe. But these restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora, and the President retains discretion over who has access.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Rao and Katsas were nominated by Trump in his first term. Judge Nina Pillard, appointed under former president Barack Obama, dissented. Historically, the AP has been part of a small, rotating pool of media outlets that cover the president's day-to-day activities as well as events open to larger groups of credentialed media outlets. In an April 8 order, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that the AP was likely to succeed in arguing that the Trump administration violated the First Amendment of the US Constitution by singling out one media outlet based on its editorial choices. He said that officials remained free to exclude journalists from one-on-one access to Trump, but that they couldn't kick out the AP if it allowed in its peers. The case is Associated Press v. Budowich, 25-5109, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (Washington) Olympics Toronto & GTA NHL Columnists Toronto & GTA
Winnipeg Free Press
3 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Appeals court hands AP an incremental loss in its attempt to regain its access to Trump events
Digging deep into free-speech precedents in recent American history, a federal appeals panel handed The Associated Press an incremental loss on Friday in its continuing battle with the Trump administration over access by its journalists to cover presidential events. By a 2-1 margin, judges on the three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington granted Trump a stay in enforcement of a lower-court ruling that the administration had improperly punished the AP for the content of its speech — in this case not renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Trump's liking. The news outlet's access to events in the Oval Office and Air Force One was cut back starting in February after the AP said it would continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico in its copy, while noting Trump's wishes that it instead be renamed the Gulf of America. For decades, a reporter and photographer for the AP — a 179-year-old wire service whose material is sent to thousands of news outlets across the world and carried on its own website, reaching billions of people — had been part of a 'pool' that covers a president in places where space is limited. The decision itself was aimed only at whether to continue the stay. But the majority and dissenting opinions together totaled 55 pages and delved deeply into First Amendment precedents and questions about whether places like the Oval Office and Air Force One were, in effect, private spaces. Trump posted about the decision on the Truth Social platform shortly after the decision: 'Big WIN over AP today. They refused to state the facts or the Truth on the GULF OF AMERICA. FAKE NEWS!!!' And White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, one of the defendants in the AP's lawsuit, posted on X after the decision came down that it was a 'VICTORY!' and would allow more media to access the president beyond the 'failing legacy media.' She added: 'And by the way, @AP, it's still the Gulf of America.' An AP spokesman said that 'we are disappointed in the court's decisions and are reviewing our options.' One possibility is seeking an expedited review of the full case on its merits. President given wide latitude by court majority Judges Gregory G. Katsas and Neomi Rao agreed in Friday's ruling with Trump's assertion that it's up to the president to decide who gets into spaces like the Oval Office — and he can take into account the viewpoint of journalists he allows. That's related to AP's assertion that the ban amounts to a legal principle known as 'viewpoint discrimination.' 'If the president sits down for an interview with (Fox News') Laura Ingraham, he is not required to do the same with (MSNBC's) Rachel Maddow,' Rao wrote in the opinion. 'The First Amendment does not control the president's discretion in choosing with whom to speak or to whom to provide special access.' In deciding on a stay, the judges considered the likelihood of which side would win the case when Trump's full appeal is taken up, probably not for a few months. In that situation, a different panel of appeals court judges will hear it. Katsas and Rao were both appointed to the federal court by Trump in his first term. Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard, who dissented on Friday, was appointed by former President Barack Obama. Pillard wrote that there's no principled basis for exempting the Oval Office from a requirement that a president not engage in viewpoint discrimination. There's nothing to stop the majority's reasoning from being applied to the press corps as a whole, she wrote. In that case, it's not hard to see future Republican White Houses limiting the press covering them to the likes of Fox News, and Democrats to MSNBC, she wrote. 'More to the point, if the White House were privileged to exclude journalists based on viewpoint, each and every member of the White House press corps would hesitate to publish anything an incumbent administration might dislike,' Pillard wrote. The bumpiness between Trump and the press is longstanding Since the original ruling, the White House has installed a rotation system for access to small events. AP photographers are usually included, but text reporters are allowed in much less frequently. A study earlier this year showed Trump has spoken to the press more often in the first 100 days of his administration than any of his predecessors back to Ronald Reagan. But he's much more likely to speak to a small group of reporters called into the Oval Office than at a formal briefing or press conference — to which AP journalists have been admitted. Through Leavitt, the White House has opened up to many more conservative news outlets with a friendly attitude toward the president. In her dissent, Pillard rejected the assertion by the White House and her colleagues that the president suffers damage if news outlets not aligned with his views are permitted into certain restricted spaces to watch the government function. The majority though, insisted that the president, as the head of the executive branch, has wide latitude in that respect. Wrote Rao: 'The Oval Office is the President's office, over which he has absolute control and discretion to exclude the public or members of the press.' ___ David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at and
