Thomas Lukaszuk speaks at a Forever Canadian rally in Edmonton on May 23.Amanda May Erickson/The Canadian Press
Tyler Dawson is an Edmonton-based editor for The Globe and Mail’s Opinion section. He is the author of The Republic of Alberta: An Idea That Won’t Go Away.
Alberta’s federalists have a key asset on their side: U.S. President Donald Trump.
Generally speaking, the wind’s already behind them: If you believe the opinion polling, the separatists are in for a fairly epic defeat in October in Premier Danielle Smith’s referendum about secession.
But depending how you look at it, that’s by no means a sure thing.
The separatists are whooping the federalists on the fundraising front. They are putting up flags and signs around the province, they’re holding meetings, and the podcasters and influencers are doing their thing online.
The federalists, on the other hand, are taking their case to Albertans via traditional media, and have a decently loud social media presence, but don’t seem to have quite the same ground-game momentum. When was the last big meeting of federalists in Alberta? They feel, fundamentally, less visible.
People take part in a Forever Canadian rally in Edmonton on May 23.Amanda May Erickson/The Canadian Press
Enter Mr. Trump and his latest tariff provocations, which he announced Monday. Enlisting the help of legislation from 1930, Mr. Trump has jacked up tariff rates to 50 per cent on all sorts of Canadian goods.
Bad news for Canada, to be sure. But for the federalists, it might be a godsend. Perhaps not quite so much as Ms. Smith’s recent economic announcements, including two pipeline proposals and a major data centre near Edmonton, which help blunt the separatists’ case that Alberta is economically disadvantaged in Canada, but certainly a point in the federalists’ favour.
Albertans are not substantially more readily seduced by Mr. Trump’s charms – whatever they may be – than Canadians anywhere else in the country, and they are subsequently not much less immune to the rally-around-the-flag effect that Canada’s trade war with the United States is causing. The President isn’t especially popular here. And Albertans are no more enthusiastic than anyone else about the economic damage being done to our country.
In contrast, some separatists, including some of the movement’s leaders, are open admirers of the U.S. President. Not only that, but they’re proposing MAGA-like policies, including mass deportations, for example, in their fantastical vision of an independent Alberta. Some have even boasted that they’ve met with members of the U.S. administration.
This is unlikely to win them friends and influence in the fight over Alberta’s future at a time when Mr. Trump is public enemy number one. And the federalists don’t need to win over the hardcore separatists; they need the “frustrated federalists,” the people aggrieved over the state of Canada but not dead-set on leaving, to vote to remain. Those people are unlikely to ignore the similarities between Mr. Trump and the separatists, both in terms of vibes and political outlook, or the President’s attacks on Canada.
Opinion: Despite what the separatists think, Albertans actually aren’t that mad
But then there’s Doug Ford, who, after a meeting of Canada’s premiers, suggested using oil and potash as “leverage” against the United States. Nothing, should it happen, would be a greater gift to the separatists; such a move would widely be seen in Alberta (and Saskatchewan) as kneecapping the West to benefit Central Canada.
It’s unlikely to happen, but still.
Additionally, there’s the annexation talk. For more than a year, Mr. Trump has been musing about turning Canada into the 51st state. There’s a subset of the Alberta separatist movement that’s actually quite keen on the idea. But this is a wildly unpopular idea in Alberta, as elsewhere in the country and probably not even that popular among separatists.
Regardless, the more that talk continues, and the more Mr. Trump’s generalized belligerence toward Canada continues, more and more Albertans will begin to fear the prospect of standing alone as a country of 5 million souls, next door to a behemoth 340 million strong and led by a man who’s talked openly about his imperial dreams. And the separatists will become more toxic to the mass of Alberta voters called upon to vote in October.
More to the point, all of this – the polling, Mr. Trump’s deep unpopularity and the separatists’ similarities to him personally and enthusiasm for his policies generally – suggests the federalists could just sit back and let the separatists be undone by what’s happening in the world around Alberta.
This, too, would be unwise, even though there’s a decent chance it succeeds. It’s not too late for the federalists to rouse themselves and take the fight to the separatists.
If they do, they’ll find they have a kind of ally to the south, weakening their enemies and helping to strengthen the case for sticking with Canada.