Welcome to 35 West. I'm Chris Hernandez-Roy, Deputy Director of the Americas Program at CSIS and co-host of the 35 West podcast. What's up, professional? The Mexican government. But are we ready? I don't think. Reform trends in Argentina. And that's what happened. The role at all in the NAFTA negotiations. Welcome to 35 West. I'm Chris Hernandez-Roy, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Americas Program and the co-host of the 35 West podcast. Today we turn our attention to Canada and more specifically to the oil rich province of Alberta, where debates over federalism, energy policy and regional identity have triggered a renewed conversation around separatism. Alberta separatism is a recurring but minority political current rooted in Western alienation. The perception that Alberta's economic interests and political values are marginalized by federal institutions dominated by central Canada. It tends to surge during periods of high federal-provincial tension, especially when federal policies are seen as constraining Alberta's energy sector, such as carbon pricing, environmental regulations, or pipeline approvals. Recent political developments in Canada and certain phenomena that parts of Canada share with the United States have breathed some new life into this movement. To help us unpack the roots of Alberta's separatist sentiment, why it has gained traction in recent years, and what it means for Canada's political future, we're pleased to be joined by Randy Buesenau, a former member of Canada's Parliament representing Edmonton Centre, Alberta's capital, and a close observer of the province's political landscape. Randy also held ministerial portfolios in the recent Trudeau government. Thank you for joining us today, Randy, and welcome to 35 West. Thanks, Chris. It's a great pleasure. I appreciate the work of the Centre and very happy to join you on 35 West. Excellent. Randy, Alberta has long occupied a unique place within Canada's federal system. As a resource-rich province, particularly when it comes to oil and gas, Alberta has been a major driver of Canada's economic growth. At the same time, many Albertans have felt politically and culturally distant from decision-making in Ottawa, especially when federal policies are perceived as constraining the province's energy sector. To set the stage for our audience, can you walk us through the historical roots of Alberta separatism? Why has this idea resurfaced periodically, but always remained a minority political current? Sure, I'm very happy to. You know, Chris, I'm old enough to have become politically aware at the time when Alberta separatism first reared its head in the early 1980s. So I'm a 1970s kid born in 1970. And this issue of Alberta separatism, I can remember it coming to the fray, you know, when I was about 12 years old. And I'm happy to break it down what the modern movement is. But let's set Alberta in its context first. I live, as you said, in Edmonton, the capital city of Alberta. And I think what's interesting for your listeners is to be reminded that Canada is the fourth largest global producer of crude oil and holds the fourth largest proven reserves, and that Canada ranks as the fifth largest producer of natural gas, making us a major exporter. In both cases, the vast majority of those resources are in Alberta. And I'll give you some numbers. 167 billion barrels of crude and 130 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. So at 5 million people, Alberta makes up about 13% of the Canadian population. And depending on the year and the price of resources in that year, the province represents between 15 and 18% of the Canadian GDP. So Albertans have this idea, you know, borne out of the numbers that we punch well above our in the Federation. We are also home to two of the jewels in the crown of national parks. Some of your listeners will know Banff and Jasper, the two most visited national parks in all of Canada. And our two largest cities are Calgary, which is where most of the oil companies are based, and the capital city Edmonton, where I live. Now, let's go back to your main question. And I would break modern Alberta separatism, its movement into three different events and phases. First is the National Energy Program. Its effect on Alberta, the economy, and collective psyche. Next is the rise and the evolution of the Reform Party. And then third, you have the global pandemic and its aftermath. So let's go first to the National Energy Program. Situate yourself in the 1970s. Alberta is booming with oil production. The black gold rush is on. Calgary doubles size in nine years. People and businesses were making great money. and geopolitics kept driving the price of the resource up. People and businesses were doing well, but at the same time, this gave headaches to the liberal government of the day. And in 79, with the revolution in Iran, oil prices really spiked and the government of the day, Ottawa Liberal government under Pierre Trudeau, wondered what that would mean for the whole country. And so they implemented the National Energy Program. Now, it was designed to reduce natural gas and oil prices for Central and Eastern Canada, but it became the most hated piece of legislation to ever affect Alberta and Western Canada. And I have to say that if you take a look at the numbers, it represents a wealth transfer of about $100 billion of Alberta wealth to Ottawa, which in today's numbers would be about $260 billion. And to put that in its context, the annual Alberta provincial budget is about $80 billion. You have to pile onto this the fact that the global economy went into a tailspin, a deep downturn. And so the die was cast for economic ruin. And the idea that, you know, the Trudeau government and the liberals basically shut down Alberta's business has stuck for 30 years. Immediately, like this national energy project was introduced in October of 1980. In November, in Edmonton, there was an event held by the Western Canada concept, 2,700 people showed up at one of our big auditoriums to listen to it. And this idea that Alberta would be second fiddle to the rest of the country, and that we were second-class citizens, really got cemented into people's psyche. And just as an anecdote, so this took place in 1980, Chris. I was on the doors running to be a Liberal Member of Parliament 35 years later, in 2015, and I heard this on the doors. So the mythology that Pierre Elliott Trudeau ruined the province is still alive and well, even in the capital city of Edmonton. Now, let's turn to the Reform Party. The Reform Party was a phenomenon that took the West by storm in the 1990s. Following a stunning result in 1993, where they elected well over 50 MPs, in 1997, they elected so many MPs that they formed the official opposition, under the banner the West wants in. Now, what were their main planks? Well, discontent over the government's attempts to give Quebec special status, criticism of tax increases, a desire for political institutional reform, most notably an equal elected and effective Senate to give Western provinces more say in how the country was run. And they also wanted populist policies such as free trade, direct democracy, referendums and recall, and cuts to a lot of social and cultural programs. What happened is the Reform Party came in under a big splash. through several iterations, they became part of what is now the modern Conservative Party. And at the end of the day, they didn't deliver on the issues that propelled them into office, even though Stephen Harper ran the country for 10 years under a conservative banner with all those Reform MPs. And so that left bitter taste in the mouths of separatists and those who felt alienated here in the West. Then COVID-19, we have the pandemic and we have pandemic restrictions, puts people at home, close quarters with their families for months at a time, limited ways to get out and get rid of cabin fever, use of social media spikes, conspiracy theories spread. And I saw it happen here. I wasn't in office. I lost the 19 election. And so I was at home like everybody else. And we could see that there were conflicting reports of people. Did they die from COVID or did they die from the vaccines? And this blew my mind, but we could see this happening. People were scared, they were angry, they were frustrated, and they started to find each other online. Then we had restrictions loosened, COVID spiked again, restrictions imposed again, which made people further, more angry. And all of this culminated in Ottawa trying to impose in late 2021, early 22, vaccine restrictions on truckers, and the lid blew off this thing. Some of your listeners might remember a trucker convoy that came to Ottawa and stayed in the capital city for weeks and weeks and weeks on end between February and March of 22. The corollary to that here in Alberta was a blockage of the U.S.-Alberta border at Cootes, and it literally set the stage for a showdown between these protesters and the Alberta government and Premier Kenney who had authorized vaccines and managed the pandemic in a reasonable way did not go far enough to support the separatist cause. And so a group called Take Back Alberta was formed to throw Premier Kenney out of office. They succeeded and they put into office the current Premier, Daniel Smith. So we have a perfect storm. Social media as an organization and a mobilization tool, success at exercising power to influence a populist agenda and a willing participant in the new premier. As a 1970s kid like you, I was born in 1969. But coming from central Canada, coming from Ottawa, I was keenly aware of Quebec separatism, but not Alberta separatism until I was firmly into adulthood. You've painted the origins of this for us. But over the past decade, the separatist sentiment in Alberta has really gained new visibility and accelerated, particularly under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government. Why has a second Trudeau reinvigorated separatist sentiment in Alberta? Yeah, that's a really good question, Chris. And that's why I wanted to spend so much time helping your listeners unpack the national energy program, because it is so devastating to the psyche of Albertans that 40 years later, 45 now, people are still talking about the national energy program. And so you can imagine that people had started to forget about the NEP. And then all of a sudden, Justin Trudeau, son of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the person who imposed the national energy program on our province and our region, is now the leader of the Liberal Party. And let's be frank, I was a candidate during that time, during that election. We were the third party. I wasn't in office at the time, but the Liberals started that election in third place. And they catapulted over the New Democrats to form a majority government in 2015. And that set off alarm bells throughout the West, and particularly in Alberta. They were deeply concerned about what it would mean for energy exports, for climate change policy, and just the fact that the visceral hatred for the Trudeau name, and now the sun was taking over, really played out badly. Add to this mix a downturn in oil value and easy access to social media, and the stage was set for a really serious clash. So I served as, as you said, a member of parliament for Prime Minister Trudeau during that first year. And the 2019 election, it was something else. It became a referendum on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as on climate policy. A conservative government had just been reelected in Alberta. They threw out the new democratic government. And so there was this sense that the conservatives had taken the province back. And Alberta and Saskatchewan sent very clear messages. After that election, Chris, there were no liberal seats in Saskatchewan, no liberal seats in Alberta. And I lost, as did several well-placed cabinet ministers and other MPs in the West. What was unclear was just how deeply the pandemic, vaccine debates, and deep dives into social media would affect people and how negatively they would express themselves. And we would see this during the trucker blockade, both in Ottawa and Cootes. Now, let me break down for you what I've been able to identify are the driving forces behind the modern separatist agenda, if you will. So, and it goes into, I think, four buckets, economic liberation, resource development, autonomy, democratic representation, and provincial sovereignty and identity. And so, you know, from the perspective of somebody who wants to have their own Alberta country, it can be shown in the numbers that Alberta contributes more in federal taxes than it receives in federal spending. And now I could argue on the other side that it doesn't account for the investments made in training people in other provinces that moved to Alberta for the economic opportunity. And I know that as my time as minister, I brought about $50 billion to Alberta over four years. But people who push this idea really want economic independence to allow them to keep all the resource revenue, no royalties to Ottawa, design its own tax system, stop equalization payments that supports health care and education in other provinces. They want to develop their own pension plan and they want what would be, I guess, their own national police force, an Alberta police service. essentially, Alberta could be a net prosperous self-financing state. So that's bucket one. Bucket two is resource development authority. They don't want anybody with environmental rules telling them where they can build pipe, where they can drill, how much oil they can ship. And so that resource development autonomy is really critical to the Alberta identity. Now, in the Alberta psyche, energy sovereignty equals economic stability. In terms of democratic representation, it's true we have fewer seats because we have a smaller population. What really still grates Western separatists is the fact that the Senate was set up and there's 24 seats in Ontario, 24 seats in Quebec, and the West, as four provinces, gets 24 seats. So that means Alberta only gets six seats. So that grates. The appointed Senate also bothers folks who are part of this ilk. So that continues to linger and fester. Finally, this idea of provincial sovereignty and identity. People in this movement will say Quebec has wanted to separate. So do we. we think we are our own distinct nation, distinct political society based on small government and a resource-based economy, and that Alberta values are just simply structurally incompatible with a federation governed by central Canada. Now, for a little bit of balance, critics, federalists like me would say, look, this is a huge economic gamble. It's completely unrealistic. It's essentially a political protest and a way to negotiate with the Federation, you're creating ridiculous investor uncertainty at a time when what you really want is a company to come and help you build your next pipe to Tidewater. And it would lead to a fragmentation of Canada. And I think an Alberta state would last about five minutes and would be quickly subsumed by the United States as the 51st state. Alberta's separatist discourse has not developed in isolation. Across North America, populist movements often based on real or perceived economic grievance, opposition to political elites and foreigners have gained adherence. And in the United States led to President Trump being elected to a second non-consecutive term. Some analysts argue that similar political grievances within the Canadian context, especially among young men, have influenced Alberta's political discourse. Randy, do you see Trump-style populism influencing Alberta separatist rhetoric? How have social media, alternative media ecosystems, and cross-border political narratives shaped the movement in Alberta? There's a lot there, Chris. So I'm going to start with an anecdote. So it's toward the end of 2024, and I know there's an election coming up in 2025 federally, and the Edmonton Oilers are in the playoffs. And I'm not kidding you, two blocks from my house, people are selling Oilers flags, but they're also selling Trump flags and F. Trudeau flags two blocks away from my house. So there is a certain segment of the population that is conflated with the Trump movement. And I think I want to break this down into three thoughts, and I'll give you two examples. So Trump stop populism does resonate with the separatism leadership and also members of that movement based on economic freedom arguments, this ability to go your own way, freed from the shackle of an overarching government. Definitely resonance and alignment on pulling back from climate change and drill baby drill. And the resource development, the frustration that permeates this movement is that we're a landlocked province. We need to get our product to Tidewater. And it just seems not impossible, but difficult to build a pipeline. And Chris, here's the irony. In our first mandate as the Trudeau government, we bought the TMX pipeline. And when I was associate minister of finance, we completed that pipe. And that pipeline is now getting Alberta bitumen to international markets. And for the first time in my lifetime, the U.S. doesn't dictate the price of our oil. We now get world price of oil. Second bucket that I wanted to talk about is the high importance that this group places on being close to President Trump, being seen to be in his orbit or part of the White House or maybe at Mar-a-Lago. And that's why these visits to Washington, to Mar-a-Lago, by leaders of the separatist movement, but also by the premier, really resonate with that cohort. Third effect that's taking place here is social media use and the way that we've seen social media weaponized to achieve democratic aims. The ability to share information quickly, the ability to find like-minded individuals and recruit, the ability to fundraise quickly, and the ability to mobilize. All of that is playing out behind the scenes in the separatist movement. So before the weekend, I think it was Friday, I had the chance to have a conversation with the head of the Forever Canada campaign, Thomas Lukasik. And he was a provincial minister in the Alberta governments under premiers Stelmeck and Redford. He also served for a time as former deputy premier. And in speaking with him, it was fascinating because Thomas shared with me that he sees a direct parallel between aggrieved 20 to 45 year old Caucasian males in the US that have glommed on to the mega movement and the supporters here in Alberta of separatism that he has met in his travels in his van you know going across the province In his analysis there is a cohort in this demographic that identify primarily as Christian They adhere to a set of traditional values and for whom their perception of their influence in society today, their ability to find work, their ability to attract a wife, their ability to have status in society has changed. They see more competition for them than their parents or grandparents faced, and they resent that change. And this combination of grievances leads them to look for forces to blame. Now, the federal government, particularly liberals or New Democrats or Laurentian elites, are really good forces to rally against, as are newcomers and professors, university professors, college people, and the mainstream media. This cohort wants to be seen and they want to be heard. And the separatist movement does just that for them. But they take it one step further by providing an alternative that will take away their pain points. And the pitch is join us in our own country and we'll have economic independence. Ottawa and Quebec won't tell us what to do. We'll be free from the Supreme Court of Canada. We can make our own decisions. No more sending money out east. And we can ally ourselves even more closely with the U.S. Now let me give you an example of how social media and organization and anger has crystallized into a potent movement. Take Back Alberta grew out of the convoy blockade in Coutts in 22, when hundreds of vehicles blocked the Canada-US border. It's the local manifestation of the Ottawa convoy occupation. And its organizers, David Parker, Mitch Silvestra, and others, didn't agree with vaccine mandates. They didn't like that Ottawa imposed vaccine mandates on truckers, and they didn't like how then-premier Jason Kenney managed the government during and after the pandemic. And through grassroots and social media organization, Take Back Alberta was able to mobilize enough delegates to defeat Jason Kenney in his 22 leadership review and install Danielle Smith as premier. They now control the majority of the seats on the United Conservative Party board, and the premier remains Danielle Smith. So, Chris, these tools are now being applied to the Alberta Prosperity Project. With social media, rather, it's easy to set up, easy to share information, easy to recruit people and easy to fundraise. And that's now how we're staring down the possibility of fighting a referendum to take Alberta out of Canada. Just for the benefit of your listeners, you referenced the TMX, which is, of course, the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which runs from Edmonton to Burnaby on British Columbia's Pacific coast. Elections Alberta, which is the provincial body responsible for running the province's election, announced just about two weeks ago on January 2nd that it had approved a citizen initiative petition aimed at putting a referendum question forward to Albertans about the idea of separating from Canada. The approval means that the separatist group behind it, the Alberta Prosperity Project, which you've talked about, now has a green light to start collecting the required 177,000 or so signatures to trigger a referendum. The question the group will ask citizens is, quote, do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state, unquote? If they reach the threshold, a referendum might come later this year. Randy, how was it that the conservative government in Alberta, led by Premier Smith, who you've mentioned, how did they facilitate this petition through the passage of Bill 14? Is this a real move towards separation or mainly a bargaining instrument? Chris, I don't think it's a bargaining instrument. I originally did. Some of the other moves that I saw her do, I would consider them to be, you know, bargaining with the feds. But this is something different. And I'm not an alarmist, but Bill 14 for me is indicative of something quite new in the timeline and even I will call the shape of the Alberta separatist movement. If you look back through the movement's history, you know, as I said, back from the 80s all the way to now, premier after premier would listen to these aggrieved citizens and their complaints and take their grievances very seriously. And they would, you know, represent them in Ottawa. They would talk with people. They would actually, you know, have showdowns and face-offs with Ottawa. But they would always point to Alberta being part of a strong Canada and drawing the line at separatism, drawing the line at a referendum question on the matter. And, you know, Albertans and Canadians remember the traumatic experiences of the 1980 and 1995 Quebec separatism referenda. and no Alberta premier has ever wanted to voice such division on this province until now. Add to this what we all witnessed with Brexit, what I would call having been there recently, the lever's remorse that is taking place in the UK. And one would think at a time when we're facing the most difficult negotiation with our largest trading partner, the United States, when the province desperately needs a private capital to fund the building of another pipeline to Tidewater, and oil pipeline to tight water that dousing the separatist flames would be the first and only course of action. Instead, the premier has literally reached for the gas can. Bill 14 removed provisions in the act that prevented the certification of an unconstitutional referendum question. So a question that was not legal before passing of Bill 14 is now legal. And for the first time in the history of the separatist movement, there is a premier in office who is prepared to let the fall, or they may. To great, I won't say frustration, but I think it augurs very badly for the country if we actually have to fight a negative referendum to pull Alberta out of Canada. While the Alberta Prosperity Project tries to get the required signatures, there's another group working at the same time called the Forever Canada Campaign. And they are on the other end of the spectrum. They emphasize federal unity by underscoring such themes as shared economic benefits of the Canadian Federation, federal investments in the provinces, interprovincial solidarity, and Canada's global standing as a stable democracy. Earlier this year, they collected over 400,000 verified signatures from Albertans, responding yes to the question, do you agree that Alberta should remain a part of Canada? The group wants the Alberta legislature to formally address and affirm Alberta's place in Canada rather than to allow separatist efforts to gain traction. What are the chances of this pro-Canada initiative succeeding? So my answer is the opposite of what I just said. And the other question, like almost none. And if we roll the tape back a bit, so the background to Bill 14 passing is quite dramatic because earlier this year, an Alberta judge ruled the referendum question by the Alberta Prosperity Project to be unconstitutional. Okay. So let that sink in. their question was dead in the water. And at that point, if the premier and her people were interested in just putting this question away, they could have simply blamed the court, moved on, negotiated a solid memorandum of understanding with the Canadian government energy policy, and the separatism movement would have been stalled or at least curtailed for a generation or longer. But as I said, that's not the course of action they took. They actually changed the law to allow the Alberta Prosperity Project's question to stand. And it now stands. They're collecting signatures. And if they get to their threshold, it means a referendum in October of 2026. So it is very clear to me that the government is putting down a marker. And if you go back to the UCP convention in November of 2025, Premier Smith was booed on stage for saying that she believes in a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada. And later, when it was given the stage, one of the organizers of the Alberta separatist movement, Jeff Rath, called for a sovereign Alberta, got a thunderous cheering applause. So given that, you know, the UCP is controlled by Take Back Alberta and the Premier's fear that the separatism question could crack her party in two, it all fits. Much, I will say, to the detriment of Alberta and Canada. Randy, energy remains at the heart of the Ottawa-Edmonton relationship. Recently, the federal government and Alberta reached an agreement related to oil extraction and energy policy, constituting a big effort to ease tensions. Nevertheless, some are skeptical about the agreement's long-term impact. Do you think this federal-provincial agreement can realistically help ease tensions and reduce the separatist sentiment? What more should the federal government be doing? And really, to get to the heart of the matter here, what do you think the chances are that the separatist movement will succeed? okay so a few things to unpack there and i'm really glad you raised the matter of the memorandum of understanding between the governments of canada and alberta it will help across the general population absolutely it will help what's ironic is that the memorandum of understanding has actually frustrated the separatist leaders and its members putting the premier on the defensive for signing it i think specifically the memorandum the agreement will help reduce tensions across alberta on the issue of energy extraction and and getting product at tidewater a polling firm here in Canada Leger did a deep dive into this issue in May of 25, and it was clear in the data that positive signals from Ottawa on energy matters would positively affect people's willingness or support to have Alberta stay in Canada. So that's a good thing. Now a lot of observers and political commentators I haven commented on this publicly but I am now is that the MOU between Ottawa and Alberta is largely political and symbolic And they have some credence because there's no company that has stepped up to build a new pipeline to the BC coast. I was in office during the purchase of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, and it started at $12 billion. It got well over $30 billion by the time we were done. And, you know, there's a ton of work and tens of billions of dollars of investment needed to build a new pipe. The support of the federal government, the coordination of a new entity known as the Major Projects Office based in Calgary certainly will help. But what the province needs, this is a private sector partner. It's going to take on the risks that I mentioned. And saber rattling with a referendum on separatism is not going to attract the type of patient long-term private capital needed for this project. So what we don't have presses any clear signal of what Ottawa was able to secure from Alberta and from the Premier in their negotiations leading up to the agreement. Repealing Bill 14 would have been a clear signal. An expression that the referendum would take place during a future general election and not as a standalone vote would also signal an intent by the Premier to help the forces that want to keep Alberta and Canada. If you think about it, you have a general election. Everybody's going to the polls anyway. So you're going to get people to vote on the referendum. If it's just a standalone referendum, pundits believe, and we've seen this in other referendum, that the angry folks and the people that want to leave have a better chance of mobilizing their base. Now, as for what more the feds could do, they need to point to the results coming out of this agreement. They need a full court press, like a charm offensive, that reinforces the importance of Alberta and Canada and Alberta to Canada. Our status as a G7 nation, our ability to influence geopolitics, such as our continued support for Ukraine, resonates deeply here in Alberta. And I think we've got to talk about the risks to pensions of Alberta, health, education and public sector workers. There's a lot here that people haven't unpacked. And going on this path of a sovereign Alberta would put those pensions at risk. Now, I've been very clear with my colleagues still in government that they need to extract an agreement, private if need be, that the premier will put the brakes on this referendum. We've seen no evidence of that. And to your last question, as to the success of the referendum, I do agree with other commentators on the matter that getting over 50% on this first vote is unlikely. I think that the sentiment, though, misses the mark. The Leave Canada forces start at 17%, maybe as high as 20%, depending on the polls you see. Now, if these forces can appeal to enough unhappy Albertans and can get that number into the mid-30s or even to 40%, then the country is in for some choppy waters. What Forever Canada team needs to do is to mobilize such an overwhelming support for staying in the country that the vote stays well below 30%. And I'm concerned that with a perfect storm of social media, perceived support from down south and abroad and a compliant premier, that the Forever Canada team has a much harder task ahead than the Alberta Prosperity Project folks do. Randy, I want to turn now to the possible international dimensions of this issue. Recently, Jeffrey Rath, who is a prominent Alberta separatist leader, and he's one of the co-founders of the Alberta Prosperity Project. He said, quote, if the United States is creating a new world order, we want to be part of that order. We don't want to be on the outside, unquote. His group has sent three delegations to Washington claiming they've had meetings at very senior level with the U.S. State Department to talk about separatism. Given President Trump's musings in late 2024 and early 2025 about making Canada the 51st state, do you think that members of his administration might be sympathetic to the Alberta separatists? If that were so, it would be a complete reversal from previous U.S. government policy, which was always firmly opposed to Canada's other separatist movement in Quebec, which triggered two failed referendum bids. Well, Chris, I agree with you. It would be a complete reversal of what we have known U.S. policy to be, which is to stay out of the fray. And I was studying in Oxford in 1995 when the second Quebec referendum took place. And, you know, for context, there was no social media, no live feeds, no apps. And the government or the, you know, the media in the UK couldn't be bothered covering such an event in Canada. I had friends calling me from different time zones to give me updates regularly, you know, 15-minute updates. And that experience really affected me deeply, shaped my decisions on where I would live, led me to run for office later in life, and shaped how I approach being an MP and minister. Now think about how much the world has changed since 1995, in tone and in technology. The populist influences in the U.S. would be all too happy to see Alberta become the 51st state. Our oil reserves and critical minerals would keep U.S. companies busy and profitable for several generations, and it would give them even closer access to the Arctic. And no one should be deluded into thinking that Alberta would remain a standalone country for long. I mean, landlocked, surrounded by what would remain of Canada, the pull of the U.S. would simply be too strong for the new administration in Alberta to resist. So to your question about, you know, are U.S. officials involved? As a former parliamentarian, I know how challenging and tough it is to get meetings in Washington. And whether it's a Democrat or Republican administration, look, White House meetings don't simply happen out of thin air. It's a challenge for ministers and MPs to break through the daily national and global pressures facing any U.S. administration. So the question then is, how did representatives of a citizen-led initiative to separate Alberta, a province that represents, you know, 13 to 15 percent of Canada's GDP from Canada, how did those representatives secure a meeting in the White House? It also begs the question, who in the current Trump administration is interested enough in what these representatives would have to say that they would pave the way, not once, not twice, but three times that we know of to hold such meetings. And if we take Jeff Rath and Mitch Sylvester and Cameron Davies at their word, they have met with cabinet-level aides and advisors on more than one occasion at the White House. So someone at the White House coordinated those meetings and invited staff members to attend them. What is interesting, Chris, is that in the Canadian press generated by Mr. Rath and these meetings, it's the allusion to a $500 billion U.S. loan guarantee against Alberta's natural resources to a new sovereign Alberta, as well as swapping out Alberta pensions in Canadian dollars for pensions in U.S. dollars. Now, I can't say if U.S. officials are quietly advising Alberta separatists. It could be that advisors and aides listened to the representatives and nothing more occurred. It could also be that conversations involved hypothetical scenarios, you know, based on different referendum outcomes, let's say. We don't know who attended these meetings in Washington at the White House or what they discussed, and the same applies to meetings held at Mar-a-Lago. Randy, before we close, is there anything we haven't discussed that you think is useful for understanding Alberta's separatism and its implications for Canada's future? This conversation, Chris, and my thinking about it and other people that are musing about this leave some questions that are unanswered. Because this referendum is going to be in Alberta's jurisdiction, will we see who is contributing funds to either the Alberta Prosperity Project or the Forever Canada campaigns? Right now, there are no limits and no caps from people or companies to fund these initiatives. Once the referendum becomes real, then caps and disclosure rules apply. But everything before then is inside a black box. Another question is, how will the referendum be overseen? Elections Alberta, rather, has no teeth and no resources to oversee a vote of this magnitude. That's a very important question to be answered. And then I guess the third question would be, how will we defend against the influence of social media from other countries and from hostile state actors overseas? These are open questions that I think need answers sooner rather than later. The referendum could take place as soon as October of 2026. Now, could the premier call an election in the spring of 2026 to promote the Energy Memorandum of Understanding to the province and then, you know, head to the polls a year early before she needs to? Of course she can. And maybe, maybe that's how she buries this issue coming out of another election and there's no paying the piper to her party of a referendum. but as of now if that Alberta prosperity project gets their threshold of signatures there will be a referendum in October of 2026. I will leave you with the fact that 83 percent of Albertans see themselves as part of a strong Canada. The fact that we're discussing this matter at all is in part because there is some concern that a referendum on that question cast in the negative could simply become an anger magnet and drive that very healthy number down much to the detriment of a great country that I and millions of others across this great nation love very much. Well, what's certain is that the question of Alberta separatism will continue to be an issue that both the province and the country at large will have to deal with and hopefully move the needle to changing that 83 to 85 or 90 percent. Randy, thank you so much for joining us today on 35 West. We really appreciate your time and insights. It was a great pleasure, Chris, and I'm happy to join you again anytime. And that's it for this week's edition of 35 West. We hope you enjoyed listening and that you'll stay tuned for future episodes.
