Pipelines, separatism take centre stage at Calgary Stampede

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For eight months, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has argued that delivering an oil pipeline to the West Coast would be the antidote to fight off burbling separatist sentiment in her province and, in her words, prove that “Canada can work.”

It just so happened, on Thursday, that as she unveiled her government’s proposal for a new bitumen pipeline to southern B.C., a number of Canada’s political and business leaders were dusting off their cowboy boots and hats at the first corporate parties of this year’s Calgary Stampede, which runs until July 12.

In jointly announcing support for a pipeline that would increase Alberta’s oil output by one million barrels per day, Ms. Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney would have been hard pressed to create a bigger splash ahead of the annual rodeo, a famous business and political networking jamboree. Over the next week-plus, a variety of corporate parties will be held across the city that is home to Canada’s energy sector – an industry that has warmed to the Liberal Prime Minister after a protracted battle with his predecessor’s government over energy and environmental policy.

This year’s Stampede may be one of the more unusual rodeos as voters in the oil-rich province also contend with the spectre of a fall referendum that will ask them to consider their province’s future within Canada.

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For more than a year, that conversation has been intertwined with the politics of resource development. In March, 2025, Ms. Smith threatened a “national unity crisis” if Ottawa didn’t reverse course on a bevy of environmental and energy laws she said were stifling the oilpatch.

Since then, the two leaders have worked to make peace, with Mr. Carney stripping most of the laws Ms. Smith vocally abhorred in their joint pursuit of building an oil pipeline.

But those moves haven’t quelled separatists, many of whom are members of Ms. Smith’s United Conservative Party. In May, Ms. Smith announced that on Oct. 19, Albertans will pick between two options: remaining in Canada, or starting the political wranglings to holding a second, binding referendum.

For separatists, this year’s Stampede represents an opportunity to reach an urban audience, many of whom bristle at the notion of leaving Canada. Let Alberta Decide, a group started by lawyer Keith Wilson and rancher Tanya Clemons, will cap Stampede next Sunday with a pancake breakfast at Ranchman’s, one of Calgary’s biggest western bars.

“The cities and places where there’s undecided voters is largely where we’re trying to target our campaign,” Ms. Clemons said in an interview. “A lot of rural [people] are very much in support of Alberta independence.”

Opinion: Will Alberta’s pipeline proposal help tamp down separatist sentiment?

Federal politicians are also expected to turn out in droves this Stampede. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was in his rural Alberta riding earlier this week flipping pancakes on Canada Day and on horseback in Friday’s Stampede parade; his party’s annual barbecue is scheduled for Saturday in Calgary.

Corey Hogan, the Liberal MP for Calgary-Confederation, said roughly three-dozen Liberal MPs are expected to be in the city for the rodeo.

Mr. Hogan said that he and the party’s two other Albertan caucus members, Eleanor Olszewski and Matt Jeneroux, encouraged their colleagues earlier this year to etch Stampede into their calendars – not only because of the referendum, but because it’s good for business.

“You are never going to get more work done than you are in those 10 days of Stampede,” Mr. Hogan said in an interview.

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While Alberta business groups have raised concerns about the fall referendum being a destabilizing force for investment, Thursday night’s pipeline announcement was viewed as a key moment that could take the wind out of separatists’ sails.

Brett Wilson, a well-known Calgary-based oilman and investor, said that despite his gripes with aspects of the proposal, “we’ve got something happening in a world where two years ago ... it would have never happened.”

“This noise of separation doesn’t really get us much further ahead of where we are now,” he added.

Calgary’s business community was quietly optimistic at last year’s Stampede about the country’s direction under the newly elected Mr. Carney, Deborah Yedlin, president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, said.

A year later, concerns around roadblocks to resource development – factors Ms. Yedlin believes have largely animated Alberta’s separatist movement – have now largely been removed, she said.

“I think, from a separatist standpoint, it’s going to be a whole lot harder to say Ottawa doesn’t listen to us.”

Ms. Yedlin said the pipeline’s potential designation as a project of national interest is an implicit endorsement of federalism: “You can’t have a nation-building project if the province chooses to separate”

Ken Boessenkool, one of the frontmen for Lead Not Leave, a pro-Canada policy group advocating for a “strong Alberta within a United Canada,” said he believes the pipeline announcement has damaged the separatist cause.

“It’s just making it more and more irrelevant. Like, why are we talking about separatism when things are working? Why are we doing this?”

But Ms. Clemons, one of the leaders of Let Alberta Decide, said she’s not persuaded by Ms. Smith’s pipeline proposal. “I think it’s asking Albertans to celebrate something that isn’t actually tangible or real yet.”