CALGARY, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Separatists in Alberta are ramping up a petition campaign aimed at triggering an independence vote in the western province that has long complained its economy is being held back by the rest of Canada.
Volunteer canvassers are hoping to collect by May 2 approximately 177,000 signatures, or 10% of the province’s registered voters, the threshold required to launch a citizen-led referendum on separation from Canada.
While unlikely to result in an independent Alberta, the campaign poses a challenge to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s efforts to show a united Canadian front in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats to annex the country.
In the picturesque town of High River in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, a slow trickle of residents stopped by a quiet strip mall on a recent Thursday morning to sign their names to the independence petition. While some expressed personal admiration for Trump, most said joining the United States was not their goal – they want Alberta to be its own country instead.
A politically conservative province that produces most of Canada’s oil and gas, Alberta is home to long-running resentment among many that successive Liberal governments in Ottawa have hamstrung the industry’s profitability with onerous environmental regulations.
Jeff Rath, the firebrand spokesman for the Alberta Prosperity Project group that supports independence, says the separatist movement is gaining pace. He confirmed he and other activists met with U.S. State Department officials in Washington in January to get a sense of how the U.S. administration would respond to an independent Alberta.
Rath said he floated the idea of a new oil pipeline from Alberta to the United States – which he said U.S. officials responded to positively, noting their concerns on Ottawa’s plans to sell more energy to China.
“The only thing we’re interested in is a free and independent Alberta, not statehood,” Rath said.
A White House official said U.S. officials meet regularly with civil society groups, and no support or commitments to any group were conveyed. A U.S. State Department official confirmed staff-level meetings without any principals involved but said there would be no future meetings.
Asked about reports that Trump administration officials had met with Alberta separatists seeking independence, Carney has said he expected the U.S. “to respect Canadian sovereignty.”
ONE IN FIVE ALBERTANS SUPPORT INDEPENDENCE
Canada is the world’s fourth largest oil producer, and oil and gas is the country’s most valuable export product. The vast majority of Canadian oil and gas is produced in Alberta, where the energy sector is a significant employer and oil and gas tax revenues contribute substantially to provincial government coffers.
High River resident Darell Seib said he believes Alberta — which is politically conservative and celebrates its ranching, rodeos and maverick cowboy culture — is distinct from the rest of Canada.
“People are independent, people are entrepreneurial, we work hard,” he said. “We’re different. We need to have more of our governance closer to home.”
Other separatists expressed resentment that the rest of the country doesn’t appreciate Alberta’s contribution to Canada’s economy. Data shows the province contributed almost as much to Canada’s economic growth in 2024 as the country’s most populous province Ontario, even though Alberta’s population is three times smaller.
Several separatists Reuters spoke to declined to be named out of fear of facing criticism from neighbors.
Recent polling shows separatist sentiment is not backed by the majority in Alberta, with 71% of residents polled wanting to remain in Canada. But nearly one in five people support the idea of Alberta becoming an independent country, according to polling this month by Leger.
Rath would not say how many signatures separatists have. But a referendum could be held as early as October if the petition is successful.
OBSTACLES FOR ANY EFFORT TO SEPARATE
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s government made several legislative changes last year making it easier for separatists to trigger a referendum, including cutting the number of required signatures in half.
Smith said in a statement to Reuters that her government supports a strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada, “but citizen-initiated referenda allow for people to express views that might be different than that.” She said she has been working with Carney to address frictions between Alberta and the federal government.
Since electoral officials in Alberta also certified a separate petition put forward by an ex-deputy premier declaring that Alberta should remain a province of Canada, a referendum on that could also be held this fall.
“It’s absolutely bonkers,” said Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary.
“Smith may say that she’s not a separatist, but she has gone out of her way many times to make it easier for a separatist referendum to be held.”
Still, Adrienne Davidson, an assistant professor of political science at McMaster University said there are multiple obstacles before Alberta could become an independent country, including the lack of a clear threshold of voters needed for the federal government to begin secession talks.
A decades-long separatist movement in the French-speaking province of Quebec could also produce a mandate for a third independence referendum there after a provincial election this October, further complicating the picture for Carney and possibly accelerating sovereignty calls in Alberta, academics said. The separatist Parti Quebecois has been leading in polls and has promised to hold a referendum by 2030 if it wins the October election.
Carney has sought to fend off the Alberta separatist movement by offering concessions, including signing an agreement with Smith in November to roll back certain climate rules and encourage construction of a new oil pipeline to the West Coast.
Gabriel Brunet, a spokesman for Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister for intergovernmental affairs, said Alberta was “an essential partner” for Ottawa.
“Canada’s new government is engaged in renewing the Canada-Alberta relationship based on common objectives and respect,” Brunet said in a statement.
(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary and High River and Maria Cheng in Ottawa; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Deepa Babington)
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