The oil-rich Canadian cowboys who want their own Brexit

Times

15-05-2025

Many of the Albertans who have concluded the province must secede from Canada contemplate the potential breakup of their country with regret, if not outright grief.
Not so Ron Robertson.
The retired police detective and leader of the Independence Party looks forward to the day Alberta, an energy powerhouse often compared to Texas, is unshackled from the rest of the nation.
His quixotic vision, sketched out to The Times over lunch at a Thai restaurant in a small prairie town, is not as outlandish as it once seemed.
Discontent with Canada's political elite has long festered in the western provinces, where residents complain of neglect from the establishment back east, but the oilmen, cowboys and cattle ranchers in Alberta's secessionist movement have been invigorated by the recent general election.
The result — in which Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor, was elected prime minister, handing the Liberal Party a fourth consecutive term in office — was met with dismay among many in Alberta.
Separatists argue that climate policies championed by the Liberals — led for the past decade by the despised Justin Trudeau — stymie their homeland, where vast reserves of oil and gas make the province one of the most resource-rich regions in the world.
That is only one complaint among many reeled off by Robertson who, in an unfailingly polite manner befitting the Canadian stereotype, accuses the establishment in the capital of treating the province like a colony.
Ottawa steals Alberta's money, he says, and residents are powerless against the wishes of the eastern metropolises of Toronto and Montreal.
'Taxation without representation,' he says, echoing the American revolutionaries in a reference that has perhaps become more potent given Canada's recently frayed relationship with its southern neighbour. 'We don't have a vote here. Every election in Canada, the prime minister is picked by the time the vote finishes at the Ontario border.'
After Carney's victory over Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader who held a commanding lead in the polls until President Trump's tariff threats hit Canada hard, Alberta's head of government promised action.
Danielle Smith, the premier of the province, does not support separatism but told those who do that if they can gather enough signatures she will hold a referendum next year. Traditionally a constitutional petition needs the support of 20 per cent of all voters as well as at least 20 per cent in two thirds of a province's ridings, but under proposed rule changes it would require only 10 per cent of voters who turned out for the last general election.
Secessionists were galvanised; Smith's critics called her reckless and said she risked repeating the ignominy suffered by David Cameron, the British prime minister who called the Brexit referendum and lost in 2016. Smith is facing similar dynamics to Cameron's Conservatives in her United Conservative Party, with a right wing agitating for action.
Polls suggest she should avoid Cameron's fate, though going to the populace always represents a gamble with uncertain odds.
A survey taken after the election by the Angus Reid Institute, a non-profit bipartisan organisation, suggested more than half of voters would vote to stay and only 19 per cent would 'definitely' leave. Casting further doubt on the prospects of a Canadian national divorce, three quarters of respondents expected a referendum to fail.
Shachi Kurl, the institute's president, said Alberta's leaders may also not believe secession is a realistic goal but agitating serves a useful political purpose. 'The politicians want leverage,' she said, adding that the more discontent among Smith's constituents, the harder the bargain she can drive with Carney.
Albertans who claim they are short-changed by the government may have a point. Last year the Fraser Institute, a conservative think tank, released a report that found the province had given Ottawa far more money than it had received.
From 2007 to 2022, the report said, Alberta's net contribution to the federal finances amounted to C$244.6 billion ($174 billion), more than five times as much as Ontario's. If Alberta was an 'average contributor' based on other provinces, the institute said, the federal government would have had a fiscal shortfall in 2022 of C$16.9 billion ($12 billion).
Supporters of separatism argue Alberta's financial potential is even greater.
Smith is said to be angling for concessions from Carney on environmental policies, including lifting a ban on tankers off the neighbouring province of British Columbia. She also wants the repeal of Bill C-69, which requires an assessment on the impact an infrastructure project might have on the environment and indigenous people before getting the go-ahead. Critics dubbed it the 'no new pipelines act'.
If Alberta did decide to wrench itself from the rest of Canada, the process would be so fraught with complications it could make Brexit appear a minor administrative task. The question of everything from national parks, indigenous lands, currency, trade agreements and border crossings would be up for negotiation and likely to take many years to resolve.
Given the vast areas of Alberta that are federal or indigenous lands, it is unclear how much of the province would be left if it opted for independence. Then there is the economic uncertainty: Alberta, with its population of five million, is landlocked — how would its trade work if embittered neighbours hindered its pipelines on their territory? Perhaps the central legal question would be the status of indigenous peoples, estimated to make up about 7 per cent of Alberta's population.
Canada would face an unprecedented administrative challenge, Eric Adams, a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, said. 'The break-up of this constitutional democracy of over 150 years is just not easy to contemplate, negotiate or achieve,' he said.
'The constitution [dating to 1867] did not contemplate its own break-up. It contemplates amendment but no one was talking about divorce on the wedding day.'
In 1998 Canada's supreme court ruled that unilateral secession was not legal, after the French-speaking province of Quebec sought independence in a referendum three years earlier. However, the court said that faced with a 'clear majority' on a 'clear answer' in a province-wide vote, the federal government would be obliged to negotiate with that region in good faith.
Robertson is not certain that the government would do so. The 68-year-old, who spent much of his career investigating organised crime in Edmonton, has a profound distrust of the establishment.
He spoke to The Times in Olds, a town of about 10,000 on the Queen Elizabeth II Highway between Edmonton and Calgary. To the west loomed the snowy Rocky Mountains.
Olds, a small dot on the vast prairies of Canada's wild west, is in many ways unremarkable but holds a special place in separatist history. It was the site of a by-election victory in 1982 for a secessionist, which supporters at the time hoped was the start of a movement but which proved a false dawn.
The episode pains Robertson. He believes Alberta has its own distinct cultural identity, forged by its frontier status. When on holiday, he proudly informs other tourists he is from Alberta, not Canada.
He dismisses the naysayers who argue secession is too tall an ask, conceding that the process would not be completed overnight but is doable. He has not ruled out becoming America's 51st state, though he insists independence must come first and believes Albertans will want to remain on their own once they get a taste of freedom.
'Why would you want to join the US when you can create your own nation? You can build whatever you want,' he said, 'because once you're out of Canada, it's entirely up to the people of Alberta to decide.'
Yet for all Robertson's enthusiasm and the evident resentment in Alberta, the sheer scale of the legal and administrative challenges for separatists represents an obstacle to rival the Rockies.
Then there is the Trump effect. His threats to make Canada the 51st state provoked an outpouring of patriotic fervour, with citizens rallying around the flag. Shops around the country are filled with notices urging customers to shop Canadian, while in Olds itself the red and white maple leaf fluttered around town.
In this environment, is secession likely?
Robertson, his faith in a dream he has harboured all his adult life undiminished, has a message for sceptics. 'They think of it the way Brexit was thought of in the UK,' he says with a smile. 'They don't look at it as being serious. And the day it happens, it's going to catch them with their pants down.'