As oil prices regularly boom and bust, Alberta s independence movement regularly flares up in a burst of fiery energy and quickly recedes as the burning well is capped. The movement comes, it goes, and it comes back again. Today s Albertans and Saskatchewan s, to an extent, independence movements are at a familiar crossroads. And, despite record levels of hostility towards the federal government, it is not quite poised to capitalize on it.
00:00:00.000As oil prices regularly boom and bust, Alberta's independence movement regularly flares up in a
00:00:05.260burst of fiery energy and quickly recedes as the burning well is capped. The movement comes,
00:00:11.260it goes, and it comes back again. Today's Albertas and Saskatchewans to an extent independence
00:00:18.000movements are at a familiar crossroads and despite record levels of hostility towards
00:00:22.840the federal government, it is not quite poised to capitalize on it. It is in many ways a victim
00:00:29.440of its own success. Trudeau Sr.'s National Energy Program led to the election of the Western Canada
00:00:35.620Concept MLA in a 1982 by-election in Olds Didsbury. But smart maneuvering by Premier Peter Lougheed
00:00:42.500convinced Albertans that he was the man to defend them within Confederation, along with the hope
00:00:47.420that the PCs would defeat the Liberals in short order. And so they did, but Brian Mulrooney inflicted
00:00:53.080a historic defeat on the Liberals in 1984 with overwhelming support from the West. But this
00:00:58.520support was betrayed, leading Preston Manning to channel the re-emerging forces of independence
00:01:03.040into the more moderate option of the Reform Party. In 1993, the Reform Party annihilated the
00:01:09.000Progressive Conservatives in the West and gave enough hope that unreconstructed attempts at
00:01:15.320independence that they became sidelined through the Khratchen, Martin, and Harper governments.
00:01:21.460Harper's Conservative government failed to deliver on several of the big reforms that Westerners
00:01:25.580had pinned their hopes on. But it was still a strong voice at the table, with Westerners there.
00:01:31.100It was good enough for most. The temporary nature of pro-Western reforms was exposed, though,
00:01:36.420almost immediately after Trudeau Jr.'s election in 2015, as he quickly dismantled most of these
00:01:42.980reforms, save the Western Canadian Wheat Board, whose ship had already sailed. Contentment for many
00:01:49.220Albertans and some in Saskatchewan with playing the tit-for-tat federal game gave way to support
00:01:54.920for independence again, though, after the 2019 federal election. Trudeau had been returned to
00:01:59.760power without winning the popular vote, and he had demonized Westerners in much the way that his
00:02:04.720father had. Huge pro-Western Wexit rallies sprang up almost overnight. Soon, that movement merged with
00:02:11.440the Autonomist and Libertarian Freedom Conservative Party to form the Wildrose Independence Party.
00:02:15.380On the federal level, Wexit earned a huge boost in its credibility when former Senior Conservative
00:02:21.840Cabinet Minister Jay Hill became its interim leader. By 2020, polls were showing that an incredible 45%
00:02:29.680of Albertans were backing independence. Then Premier Jay-Z Kenney saw that he had a major problem on his
00:02:34.960hands. He was a dedicated Federalist, but a clear majority of his party's voters were most definitely
00:02:40.300not. He commissioned his Fair Deal panel to tour Alberta and produce recommendations on protecting
00:02:46.380Alberta's jurisdiction. It pacified things for a time and eventually recommended several sovereignty
00:02:52.280focused policies, but stopped well short of where many Albertans were at. Polls showed the nascent
00:02:57.620Wildrose Independence Party climbing out of fringe status to minor irritation status. When COVID-19 hit,
00:03:04.700while not related to any historical Western and Alberta grievances, the federal and provincial
00:03:10.880responses to it massively exacerbated differences between Albertans and Ottawa, and even within
00:03:16.840Alberta, between the government and the governed. Despite its efforts, the Kenney government was seen
00:03:22.400as much closer to Ottawa's heavy-handed approach to COVID, lockdowns, vaccine passports, arresting
00:03:28.080pastors, that kind of thing, than to the preference of many Albertans for a lighter approach.
00:03:33.060After the 2021 illegal anti-lockdown rodeo in central Alberta, Jason Kenney told his caucus,
00:03:41.280if that is our base, I want a new base, according to leaks obtained by the Western Standard from
00:03:46.640UCP MLAs in a caucus meeting. But by then, Kenney's base had already left him. Polling numbers for Kenney
00:03:53.260went from a downward trend to a crashing collapse. And while they bled some support to the NDP, the bulk of
00:03:59.240law support went to the Wildrose Independence Party, which polls showed climbing then from minor
00:04:04.240irritation status to full-blown threat. If he had continued as UCP leader and premier until the
00:04:10.5002023 election, Kenney almost certainly would have been defeated with the Wildrose Independence Party
00:04:15.340winning somewhere likely between a strong third-place finish or forming the official opposition.
00:04:20.040Alberta would very likely have seen a repeat of 2015, with Rachel Notley leading a restored NDP
00:04:25.800government and a divided right on the opposition benches. But history played out differently.
00:04:31.860An ad hoc coalition made up mostly of former Kenney allies organized to force a leadership vote
00:04:36.480and eventually succeeded in toppling him. Former Wildrose leader, QR77 talk show host,
00:04:42.680and Western Standard host and columnist, Danielle Smith, won the UCP leadership by embracing the two
00:04:47.760largest and overlapping groups most disgruntled with Kenney's premiership, the anti-lockdown and
00:04:54.000anti-mandate movement and the Alberta independence and sovereignty movement. Both groups broadly saw
00:04:59.380their rallying cry as freedom. Her promised sovereignty act, while almost universally denounced
00:05:05.280by the media and political classes in both parties, was like capturing lightning in a bottle. It was
00:05:11.200muscular enough to win the support of the independence sovereignty movement, but not so radical as the
00:05:16.380repel moderate federalists. Of course, the version of the sovereignty act that passed the Alberta
00:05:22.000legislature into law was much softer than the vision outlined during the leadership campaign.
00:05:29.320But it was still tough. And most importantly, it was a strong and unapologetic declaration of
00:05:34.920sovereignty, although not independence, from Alberta to Ottawa. The more Ottawa and the chattering
00:05:40.160classes hated it, the more we loved it. Almost immediately after her election as UCP leader and
00:05:45.920ascensionist premier, polling support for the Wild Rose Independence Party and independence itself began
00:05:50.780to drop fast. Support for the independent for independence itself dropped from a high of 45% in
00:05:57.580May of 2020, just 22% in July of 2023. Support for the Wild Rose Independence Party went from 20% in June
00:06:05.4602021 to almost zero on election day in June of 2023. While support for the Wild Rose dropped upon Smith's coming to power in the UCP, the Wild
00:06:17.120Rose Independence Party itself decided to field only a small slate of candidates in the general election, removing it as an option for the vast majority of constituencies.
00:06:25.080Adding to the party's difficulties, there was a complicated split that took place as Paul Hinman was ousted from the leadership instead of his own Wild Rose loyalty coalition.
00:06:34.080Together, the Alberta Party independence, the Alberta Independence Party that makes three parties now officially committed to independence on the books in Alberta.
00:06:45.620As of the 2023 election, Alberta has become a strictly two party system. The Wild Rose Independence Party, the Alberta Party and the Liberals collectively poll in the low single digits.
00:06:57.900Ironically, the Wild Rose Independence Party would almost certainly have seats in the legislature and poll at least respectively today if its earlier polling success hadn't played such a large role in pushing Jason Kenney out of the UCP leadership.
00:07:11.260Additionally, Justin Trudeau will not make a useful avatar of Laurentian duplicity for much longer.
00:07:18.460Most rightly believe that Justin Trudeau is going to lose the next federal election and be replaced by the Western friendly and Calgary born Pierre Polyev.
00:07:26.300Appetite for a divisive and difficult debate on full on independence will diminish even further for at least the medium term.
00:07:34.020So what options are there for the Alberta independence movement and the Wild Rose Independence Party?
00:07:38.100Option one, I call active political combatant in that the party would try to pick up where it left off before the election of Daniel Smith to the premiership.
00:07:47.500This involves the gargantuan task of building an effective fundraising machine, local constituency associations, detailed policy development, candidate recruitment and professional communications.
00:07:58.400This option is by far the most difficult and would face the inevitable fact that, at least for the time being, Alberta Sovereignists are solidly behind Smith and the UCP.
00:08:08.800The second option I call armed neutrality.
00:08:11.620Like Switzerland, the party could abstain from active political combatant status while building itself into a cadre organization, ready to enter the fray if and when the UCP government strays too far from its commitment to advancing Alberta sovereignty.
00:08:23.720Because most sovereignty support is solidly behind the UCP at this time, this option is logistically feasible and allows it to be a sentinel, ready to become a danger if provoked.
00:08:36.540The third option I call being a pressure group.
00:08:39.380Similar to the armed neutrality option, it would refocus as a pressure group and would not see the party intend to go head to head with the UCP Colossus.
00:08:49.560It would focus on policy development, education and organization to pressure the UCP to move in its direction.
00:08:56.500Most people would not see having membership in both parties as a conflict of interest.
00:09:01.400There's already a homegrown template for this in Alberta, where the defunct Social Credit Party was renamed and repurposed into the Pro-Life Association of Alberta.
00:09:10.040It uses the generous tax credit system to raise funds and puts all of its efforts behind public policy outcomes, rather than electoral success.
00:09:17.540It runs only a single token candidate in a single constituency for the purpose of maintaining its registration.
00:09:25.220Independence as a movement dedicated to the creation of an Alberta or Western nation state is not for the moment a wellfire.
00:09:32.060It's not burning, but neither is it capped.
00:09:35.280There's still pressure thrusting energy upwards to be used.
00:09:38.520Albertans may not be ready to throw Laurentian tea into the harbor for the moment,
00:09:42.400but they are ready and willing to push back aggressively against federal overreach and take back Alberta's rightful constitutional sovereignty.
00:09:50.020The well will burst into flame again at some unknown point in the future.
00:09:53.520But in the meantime, Alberta can build a house capable of standing on its own two feet for when that time comes.