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    "original_url": "https:\/\/americanaffairsjournal.org\/2026\/08\/unrest-in-the-west-anger-and-aspiration-in-the-canadian-prairies\/?utm_source=cnn_Global+Briefing&utm_medium=email",
    "parsed_content": "Fall 2026 \/ Volume X, Number 3\nAugust 20, 2026\nUnrest in the West: Anger and Aspiration in the Canadian Prairies\nBy Conrad Sweatman\nIn a 2019 article for Canada\u2019s Maclean\u2019s magazine, political scientist Barry Cooper and historian David J. Bercuson conjure a striking fantasy where Canada\u2019s vast interior hinterland breaks free from the federation.1\u00a0Backed militarily by adjacent American states, \u201cthe Republic of the Northwest\u201d would emerge in 2039 as a petro-superstate, throwing off Ottawa\u2019s imperious regulations to turbocharge oil production and pipelines. Relations with what\u2019s left of Canada would remain cordial, although \u201cGreen Party fanatics,\u201d still making trouble from Vancouver, might call for \u201can expeditionary force to bring order to these people.\u201d\nA sympathetic reader could talk endlessly about the region\u2019s century-old grudges against the federal government, with its perceived despotism and favoritism for Ontario and Quebec. A critical reader might see the authors\u2019 projected future as little more than populist political science fiction, in which Alberta\u2019s wealthy cowboys and oilmen lead the reckless charge toward independence with likeminded Saskatchewan as their junior partner. In any case, the Albertan authors also assign supportive roles to the more moderate British Columbia and Manitoba, perhaps because without them Alberta and Saskatchewan would be landlocked.\nSo far, however, this vivid vision has proven eerily prescient. In a 2021 provincial referendum, nearly two-thirds of Albertan voters called for scrapping \u201cequalization payments\u201d from Canada,2 along the lines the writers predicted. Grounded in the constitutional reforms of the Pierre Trudeau era, the system equalizes public services by indirectly redistributing wealth from Canada\u2019s \u201chave\u201d provinces, i.e., Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, to \u201chave-not\u201d provinces (all the rest). Then in 2022, Alberta adopted the controversial Alberta Sovereignty Act. It\u2019s since been invoked twice by the provincial legislature to weaken federal initiatives. Proudly described by Cooper as \u201cunconstitutional,\u201d3 the act draws on a blueprint he helped outline through the Free Alberta Strategy,4 a roadmap for Alberta sovereignty. Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, a Conservative elder statesman and staunch opponent of separatism, meanwhile, calls the act a step toward reducing Alberta to a \u201cbanana republic.\u201d5\nIn October of 2026, Albertans will head to the polls for another referendum on a bundle of proposals that angle toward greater Albertan control over education, health care, the courts, and more power and leverage against the federal government. Five of ten questions relate to immigration restrictions, namely limiting access to public services and voting for noncitizens. But the referendum\u2019s biggest bombshell is a question that reads: \u201cShould Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?\u201d\nIn other words, Albertans are, for the first time in their history, being tested on whether they wish to secede entirely from Canada. And the question bites hard into a country already on edge about its sovereignty. This anxiety has long had a sensitive trigger. Toronto literary critic Northrop Frye famously argued that Canadian identity was forged through a \u201cgarrison mentality,\u201d a tendency to fear a hostile environment defined by uncontrollable forces; in the most recent incarnation of this worldview, this would include a far more aggressive southern neighbor with an increasingly unhinged leadership.\nBetween Passion and Reason\nThe recent malaise in Canada over its sovereignty had been growing since at least U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s first term in office. This kicked into a national sense of crisis after Trump\u2019s remarks and posts beginning in late 2024 about making Canada the \u201c51st state.\u201d6 Canadians are reckoning with how deep their structural dependence runs, especially since nafta and norad, on a country whose friendship it no longer takes for granted.\nDepending on who you ask, Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney is responding with bold statesmanship, paper tiger shenanigans, or a superficial Boomer-coded neo-nationalism. In any case, the Liberal federal government has been moving, or groping, toward a generational push on trade and economic diversification, military expansion, Arctic sovereignty, and a gamut of nation-building infrastructural projects. This push includes doubling Canada\u2019s non-U.S. exports and more than doubling national defense spending over roughly a decade.7 These efforts are often undertaken in a hedging spirit,8\u00a0but they represent an open agenda of strategic autonomy, pragmatic but nationalist, unlike anything most Canadians have lived through.\nCanada\u2019s paper of record, the Toronto-based Globe and Mail, speaks confidently for many liberal Canadians on both Alberta and the southern pressure point. Much of its output on separatism reflects eye-rolling or fury at Alberta\u2019s audacity\u2014its greed, selfishness, and anti-Canadianism. Taken together, they seem to say: once again the West is bucking the program of Team Canada, and at a moment of existential crisis no less.\nBut the curious wording of the referendum\u2019s separatist question dulls its explosivity more than rhetorically. If you missed it on the first read, you\u2019ll see that it almost sounds like a referendum on whether to have a referendum on separation. It\u2019s confusing.\nFor now, an outright referendum on Alberta secession is effectively blocked by a court ruling.9\u00a0The decision by the Alberta Court of King\u2019s Bench relies on the same legal precedent most famous for its role in slowing down energy, mining, and development projects across Western Canada and elsewhere; it is based on a principle called the \u201cduty to consult,\u201d grounded in an interpretation of Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which recognizes existing aboriginal and treaty rights. Because secession would directly touch treaty rights\u2014agreements between the Crown and First Nations made before Alberta became a province in 1905\u2014the court ruled, under this doctrine, that even a citizen-led petition for a separatist referendum demands consultation with First Nations.\nThe news was met warmly by Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, national chief of Canada\u2019s Assembly of First Nations. In June, she blasted the separatist movement during a meeting with King Charles, Canada\u2019s head of state.10\u00a0\u201cThe King was there with us in unison, that First Nations are foundational partners in the creation of Canada, and our relationship cannot be changed or moved just from politics,\u201d she later told the press. \u201cAs long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the river flows, we\u2019re all treaty people in Canada.\u201d\nUniversity of Calgary professor emeritus Tom Flanagan predicts the court\u2019s decision will be reversed on appeal. \u201cWe\u2019ll see what the Alberta Court of Appeal has to say about it, but I think it\u2019s an instance of a judge freelancing on the basis of Section 35,\u201d he says. At eighty-two, Flanagan\u2019s voice may waver a little, but it carries the confidence of one of Canada\u2019s most politically consequential living academics. Alongside Cooper, Ted Morton, and Rainer Knopff, he is a member of the Calgary School. They are Alberta sovereigntism\u2019s most articulate champions, having played leading roles in the rise of the Reform Party of the 1980s and \u201990s, the exemplary vehicle of conservative Western protest and spiritual antecedent to much of today\u2019s populist Right.\nAmong the Calgary School, Flanagan has gone furthest in the direction of national power, having served as Stephen Harper\u2019s chief of staff in the early days of the newly reunified Conservative Party of the 2000s. But personal and stylistic differences\u2014such as Flanagan\u2019s habit of writing engaging tell-all campaign memoirs, and his penchant for explosively controversial scholarship and politically incorrect gaffes\u2014drove a wedge between the two, ensuring Flanagan\u2019s exile while Harper\u2019s Conservatives held power in Ottawa after 2006.\nIf Flanagan is a federalist these days, that is, a supporter of the Canadian federation\u2019s continued existence, it\u2019s only just. He promotes a style of Albertan sovereigntist politics he and his peers call \u201cautonomism,\u201d meaning Alberta should play hardball with the federal government and assert stricter control over areas normally administered by the federal government, paving the way \u201cfor a version of separatism if Alberta is forced to move in that direction.\u201d11\u00a0This includes establishing its own provincial police, pension plan, and tax collection system; other possibilities, such as exiting Canada\u2019s publicly funded health care system and Alberta creating its own constitution, are also entertained. He\u2019s not too keen on separatism\u2019s rabble-rousing grassroots leadership, however. \u201cIt seems to me that the only serious thinker among them is [Edmonton-area lawyer] Keith Wilson, and he\u2019s not really a separatist leader,\u201d he says. \u201cThey don\u2019t really impress me as statesmen . . . Jeff Rath wandering around with his cowboy hat.\u201d\nAlongside Mitch Sylvestre, Rath is the brash leader of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a key organizing group behind the push for the separatist referendum. Rath, a lawyer accused in a lawsuit of misappropriating $6 million from a First Nation he represented, cuts the image of an Alex Jones clone, with a similar visage and girth; Sylvestre is about as heavy as Jones on conspiracy theories, worrying out loud, for instance, that the king has set out to assassinate him.12\nBarry Cooper, who now researches paleolithic\u00a0societies in between teaching Plato and Machiavelli at the University of Calgary, isn\u2019t much gentler: \u201cI don\u2019t think there is any leadership. This is a grassroots movement that has more in common with what Madison called \u2018factions\u2019 during the debates over the American Revolution.\u201d When Flanagan talks about his former student \u201cDanielle,\u201d as he calls Alberta\u2019s Premier Danielle Smith, for whom he was once also a campaign manager, there\u2019s a greater sense of political alignment.\n\u201cThe Smith government has followed a sort of autonomist script . . . she\u2019s tried to use separatism as a threat without actually backing separatism herself,\u201d he says. \u201cVerbal agreements [between Carney and Smith over Alberta\u2019s energy sector] were achieved against a background of ratcheting up the threat.\u201d While Alberta\u2019s United Conservative Party (UCP) government awaits the results of its appeal against the King\u2019s Bench ruling,13\u00a0they can continue to evoke the separatist specter with their backdoor referendum and spook Ottawa into treading more lightly in resource disputes. So far, it seems to be working.\nIn late May, Alberta and the federal government signed an agreement opening pathways for a future West Coast crude oil export pipeline. The West Coast pipeline could kill two birds with one stone for Carney, appeasing Alberta while redirecting Canadian exports away from the United States and toward Asia. All the same, it\u2019s met with fierce protest by progressives, who increasingly see Carney as a turncoat: a slick operator who (like many Liberal leaders before him) signaled left in the election campaign, only to govern from the center-right.\nWhatever the appeal\u2019s outcome, neither the upcoming referendum nor a more serious one in the future could, by itself, trigger secession. Like ending equalization payments, secession would require constitutional amendments. And that means not just pursuing indigenous approval but also gaining approval from Parliament and at least seven provinces representing at least 50 percent of Canada\u2019s population. In other words, a politically next-to-impossible task.\nCentrifugal Forces\nThe stakes of Alberta\u2019s separatist gambit are nevertheless profound. They leverage deep tensions surrounding the Liberals\u2019 efforts to revitalize Canadian strategic autonomy and patriotism in a country famously described by its previous prime minister, Justin Trudeau, as \u201cpost-national.\u201d To turn Canada\u2019s resource-industrial ship, Carney must depend on reliable cooperation from the provinces, which have significant control over their resources and many economic policy levers. Yet deep discontent has remained a feature of Western politics for years, complicating any effort toward national rebuilding, however much Ottawa and the provinces agree on paper.\nCombined, Western Canada\u2019s four provinces elected Conservatives in two-thirds of their seats.14 But with Liberal stronghold provinces Ontario and Quebec together claiming nearly 60 percent of Parliament\u2019s seats, federal election results can feel predetermined to westerners and the federal system itself is regarded by some conservatives as less than fully legitimate. Since the 2025 election, polling peaks show that, in deeply conservative Alberta and Saskatchewan, and moderately conservative Manitoba, about half of conservative voters have expressed support for their province leaving Confederation.15\u00a0In more centrist British Columbia, where a conservative interior coexists with a left-wing coastal region, roughly 20\u201335 percent of conservatives have shown openness to separatism.\n\u201cCanada\u2019s incapable of understanding the position of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and I\u2019d include Manitoba too,\u201d says Cooper, speaking up for the separatists, though he recognizes that the referendum is unlikely to go the way he wants come October. \u201cThere will be enormous disruptions [with separatism], but I haven\u2019t got much sympathy for people in Ontario and Quebec. If their standard of living\u2019s cut in half, I can live with it.\u201d\nQuebec has already taken Canada through two separatist referendums. The first in 1980 deeply unsettled anglophone business elites and spurred a surge of corporate relocations from Montreal to Toronto. Yet none of this stopped Quebec from trying another separatist referendum in 1995, defeated by a razor-thin margin. Unlike Alberta separatism, this movement has enjoyed popular charismatic leaders like Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque, the chain-smoking separatist premier with his raspy-voiced message of \u201cWe are not a small people\u201d; he managed to translate 1960s radicalism into something palatable to labor unionists, Catholic grand-m\u00e8res, and francophone white-collar professionals. Quebec separatism is a perennial theme in Canadian life, but for now its support is at an historic low, despite the polling leads enjoyed by L\u00e9vesque\u2019s heirs in the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois.16\nBy contrast, Western Canada stands out as a remarkable case study of a rising secessionist tide without the factors of a distinct nationality or language. One political scientist calls it an \u201coutlier,\u201d hinging \u201conly on fiscal and economic grievances.\u201d17\u00a0Tax- and resource-related complaints may dominate the conversation, but cultural fault lines matter too. There\u2019s an abiding narrative that Central Canada (Ontario and Quebec) and the West are cut from entirely different cloths: Ontario, with its Tory-derived, now progressively tending, tradition of interventionism and centralism, and Alberta, with its populist streak and frontier ethos; Alberta\u2019s motto is Fortis et liber (\u201cStrong and free\u201d) while Ontario\u2019s is Ut incepit fidelis sic permanet (\u201cLoyal she began, thus she remains\u201d).\nOutside Alberta, the Western separatist wave, for now, has little serious organization. But it exerts grassroots influence on the West\u2019s provincial conservative parties. Inspired by the Alberta Sovereignty Act, Saskatchewan\u2019s Premier Scott Moe, who dubiously promotes the idea of Saskatchewan being \u201ca nation within a nation,\u201d18\u00a0passed the Saskatchewan First Act in 2023. Similar to Alberta\u2019s legislation, it asserts the province\u2019s \u201cautonomy\u201d and \u201cexclusive jurisdiction\u201d over its natural resources; critics regard it as unconstitutional and infringing indigenous treaty rights.\nAdding to the tensions are the peculiar roles the West plays in Canada\u2019s economy. About fifty years ago, Alberta began to sprint toward the front ranks of Canadian prosperity. While its capital Edmonton and the economic crown jewel of the oil sands are in the province\u2019s north, its financial and corporate base is in Calgary, which is about three hours north of the American border. Today, Alberta ranks among Canada\u2019s strongest exporting provinces19 and as its wealthiest20 and most productive province per capita.21 Ontario and Quebec anchor Canada\u2019s historic manufacturing and financial bases, while the Western provinces, oriented around unprocessed, raw \u201cstaples,\u201d such as crude oil, potash, canola, and grain, drive its commodity export economy. Unsurprisingly, these industries can be particularly vulnerable to price swings.22 But efforts to shift up the value chain run into pushback rooted in comparative advantage thinking and bitter memories of federal industrial policy.23\nIn recent years, Albertan energy24 and Saskatchewan potash25 and uranium26 production have ridden high, partially on the waves of global supply shocks. Meanwhile, Canada has posted among the weakest real GDP per capita growth, post-pandemic, among advanced economies,27 while Alberta leads the country in growth28 and currently drives Canada\u2019s trade surplus.29\u00a0These trends make these provinces\u2019 economic health particularly vital to Ottawa\u2019s nation-building program, which clearly depends on stable exports, tax revenues, and macroeconomic stability. But in other ways, Western Canada\u2019s staple economies and conservative cultures sit uneasily with this agenda.\nAmong Carney\u2019s biggest priorities are defense manufacturing,30 critical minerals, AI, EVs, battery supply chains,31 and electrification, with plans to double Canada\u2019s electricity grid by 2050.32\u00a0It\u2019s going to take a lot of power to \u201cbuild, baby, build,\u201d to invoke one of Carney\u2019s mantras. Not all of this necessarily signals a pivot away from the United States. Canada\u2019s defense architecture remains integrated into a continental system premised on American power, while its critical minerals push partially answers U.S. demands for \u201cfriendshoring\u201d of supply chains and less dependence on China. On the other hand, some of these same moves may help boost Canada\u2019s leverage with Washington by strengthening its trade ties with Europe and position within NATO. In any case, Western critics are sure to recognize Ontario and Quebec, where the lion\u2019s share of automotive, mineral processing, heavy manufacturing, tech and aerospace sectors are, as the disproportionate winners.\nQuebec and Ontario\u2019s manufacturing and aerospace sectors include large firms, such as Bombardier and Air Canada, decried by fiscal hawks for their \u201ctoo-big-to-fail\u201d status and special treatments. State-backed privileging of these provinces\u2019 manufacturing base may indeed sometimes promote certain \u201cundeserving winners.\u201d But it\u2019s also one of the insulating factors, along with Canada\u2019s more cautious regulatory approach to financialization, that\u2019s helped to foil the extreme collapses associated with deindustrialization. Cross the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit to Windsor and the contrast is stark: more factories, fewer fentanyl folds, and stronger blue-collar communities with less energy for populist anger. In Canada, the most powerful populist winds blow westerly.\nNorthern Imperium\nA century ago, Western Canada gave birth to the country\u2019s socialist movement, which likewise framed the region as exploited by Central Canada, in particular, by its bankers, industrialists, and corporate monopolies. This movement still resonates quietly in the prairies\u2019 provincial sections of the New Democratic Party (NDP) which, in Alberta, governed for the first and only time from 2015 to 2019. But Alberta\u2019s wealth concentration can sometimes make its plucky, salt-of-the-earth image feel hollow, especially when it\u2019s pushed by energy tycoons or establishment conservative politicians whose solidarity for ordinary Albertans often seems to stop short of organized labor.33\nAlberta may now be Canada\u2019s richest province, though it ranks as among the most economically unequal. Calling Alberta sovereignty a straightforwardly class-based populist movement clearly does not hold up. One, however, need not be a cash-strapped prole to feel the withering gaze of the Other and a bitter desire for recognition. Eyes from the East have long looked down on Alberta\u2019s boardroom elites with their McMansions of shallow vintage, enjoying the lifestyles of \u201cblue-eyed sheiks\u201d while claiming to be deprived of their fair share of national wealth. The same goes for the province\u2019s \u201crig pig.\u201d He is the stereotypical Albertan hoser, the menial but generally well-off oil worker, stereotypically known for his lack of higher education, easy money, and taste for cocaine. These colorful archetypes are present but only shallowly comprehended in the imaginaries of the metropole provinces.\nCentral Canada\u2019s comparatively broad non-U.S. trade networks, stretching into Europe, Asia, and South America, are reflected in Toronto and Montreal\u2019s pronounced cosmopolitanism. There\u2019s little denying that these cultural capitals have largely spawned Canada\u2019s most famous artistic sons and daughters, from Leonard Cohen to Kaytranada, Margaret Atwood to Charles Taylor, Drake to Denis Villeneuve. Prairie culture, on the other hand, barely seems heard or seen on the national CBC broadcast. As a result, Calgary, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg remain acutely aware of their cultural flyover reputation, a ressentiment with rumbling consequences.\nThis sense of grievance, blending the material with the symbolic, is directed at the fabled Laurentian elite, so named because of their concentration around the St. Lawrence River basin joining Ontario and Quebec. Since before Confederation in 1867, their natural governing status has largely been taken for granted, at least by them.34 Contemporary critics argue that the new Laurentians, like their forebears, see Canada as an essentially \u201cfragile nation,\u201d35\u00a0with their inherited sense of identity forged in defensive opposition to the American republic.\nConfederation also created a workable government for westward expansion. That meant a railway that could push settlement into the interior and make Canada a two-coast polity with port systems on either side; these systems evolved over the decades into the country\u2019s main trade gateways. They take on an even more vital importance amid Canada\u2019s trade diversification efforts, with $1.16 billion in federal financing so far for terminal expansion at the Port of Montr\u00e9al.36 On the Pacific side, the Port of Vancouver is also set for a major multibillion-dollar expansion.37 All this is sometimes pitched as part of a broader East\u2013West economic paradigm that harks back to Confederation\u2019s adamant rejection of the North\u2013South model of continental integration. As of July, there\u2019s also a proposed 3,300-kilometer Alberta\u2013Ontario pipeline, a potent gesture met with widespread skepticism over its feasibility.38 Momentum around transforming Manitoba\u2019s ice-clogged Port of Churchill on Hudson\u2019s Bay into a summer trade hub also opens new prospects for more exports flowing directly from the prairies to Europe.39 But, for now, prairie provinces tend to rely on U.S. trade more than any others.40 Nowhere is this more true than with Alberta\u2019s crude oil, 85 percent of which is exported to the United States.41\nToday, the conception of Canada birthed by the Laurentian elite is regularly assailed by the Left for sustaining a settler-colonial order, while also serving as the right-wing sovereigntist camp\u2019s favorite punching bag. There is thus an odd overlap between progressive postcolonialists and at least some of the sovereigntists, who may rhetorically claim the mantle of nineteenth-century M\u00e9tis rebels against Canada. Cooper is fond of quoting jurist James Mallory\u2019s remarks that the prairie provinces were originally \u201cprovinces in the Roman sense,\u201d incorporated territories where imperium, administrative rule, was exercised by a middling sort of Rome, namely Ottawa.42\nBy 1885, Canada\u2019s first transcontinental railway was finished and the National Policy had been operating for several years, intensifying the young Canadian state\u2019s expansion. To its defenders, the National Policy looks like a symbiotic East-West loop: manufacturing tariffs supported Ontario and Quebec industry with federal revenue, in turn, underwriting railway infrastructure and carrying prairie grain back to eastern Canada. But to critics like Barry Cooper now, and angry westerners then, this harmonious picture is a myth.43 After all, Western grain exporters had fewer manufactured goods\u2014machinery, farm tools, textiles, household goods\u2014which they had to purchase at a premium from eastern manufacturers while themselves being exposed to the vagaries of global markets. As Cooper pointedly emphasizes,44\u00a0it wasn\u2019t until 1930, a full twenty-five years after provincehood, that the federal government relinquished control of Crown lands and resources to Alberta and Saskatchewan.\nThe Canadian Constitution\u2019s \u201cpeace, order and good government\u201d clause offered vague definitions of Parliament\u2019s authority over provincial affairs, making for an enduring source of tension between Ottawa and the provinces in the resource sector, with Alberta being the most prone to contestation, for obvious reasons. When Alberta struck oil in 1947, its citizens and government soon found that good fortune subjected to federal meddling in various forms. For Cooper, the Alberta Sovereignty Act, whose unofficial blueprint he helped develop, is about tilting this balance of authority toward the provinces. \u201cOf course, the Constitution can be reopened! That is one of the long-range purposes of the Sovereignty Act,\u201d he writes. \u201cIf Laurentian Canadians and lawyers nearly everywhere say that the Sovereignty Act is unconstitutional, I agree but with the following qualification: legal unconstitutionality is simply another way of saying it\u2019s time to change the law of the Constitution.\u201d\nThis narrative also encourages the suspicion that Canada\u2019s hegemonic traditions have always been biased against the libertarian inclinations of Western Canadian homesteaders, cowpokes, and oil pioneers. This view is supported by the Red Tory thesis which posits an unlikely dialectical continuum between Canada\u2019s unique socialist traditions and Toryism, mediated by the egalitarian aspects of liberalism; this inflection gives Laurentian conservatism a noblesse oblige\u2013like sense of duty to the poor and a neo-feudal \u201corganic\u201d vision of community. In this light, it\u2019s not surprising that the Progressive Conservatives of the 1990s were still peppered with moderate welfarist types. Nor is it surprising that the radical \u201cWaffle\u201d wing of the NDP in the 1970s proposed a sweeping economic nationalist program premised on anti-free trade, anti-Americanism, and anticapitalism.45\nThe Waffle\u2019s leadership drew explicitly from the quintessential Red Tory, the anti\u2013Vietnam War and prolife Anglican George Grant,46\u00a0who was more fatalistic and reactionary than his young left-wing admirers. For him, continental integration and Canadian subservience to U.S. Cold War policy had already reached a point of no return by the mid-1960s after the Bomarc Missile Crisis. An early critical reader of Alexandre Koj\u00e8ve\u2019s \u201cEnd of History\u201d thesis, Grant was among the first writers to equate the rise of a technological \u201cuniversal, homogeneous society\u201d with the hegemony of American empire. In the Canadian context, this perceived loss of sovereignty was tied to the eclipse of Canada\u2019s national character and its quaint small-town traditions through the permanent revolution of Lockean liberalism.\nToday, Barry Cooper, who in younger days wrote thoughtfully about Grant, is unmoved by his old nationalist lament. \u201cI quite liked him, but he was deeply flawed. . . . He had no sympathy at all for Western Canada,\u201d he says. \u201cOnce he made a statement about the Rockies: \u2018There might be gods in these mountains, but they\u2019re not ours.\u2019\u201d Apparently, Cooper pointed out to him that, since he wasn\u2019t a climber, Grant couldn\u2019t know what gods might be found above ten thousand feet.\nChecks and Balances\nLong after the National Policy, another key catalyst to Western alienation took shape in the form of the National Energy Program (NEP), still recited like curse words by Albertans to this day. Introduced by Pierre Trudeau\u2019s Liberal government in 1980, partly to reassert the benefits of federalism for Quebec voters still reeling from the first referendum (with the promise of cheap gas), it was designed and framed primarily as an emergency response to the 1970s oil shocks. Through price controls and revenue-sharing schemes, the NEP redirected Alberta\u2019s resource wealth to the most energy-hungry provinces in the east. Naturally, this \u201cnew National Policy\u201d was greeted with angry whoops and hollers across Alberta, immortalized in the popular bumper sticker: \u201cLet the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark!\u201d\nAfter the NEP showdown, Alberta premier Peter Lougheed joined the \u201cGang of Eight\u201d alliance of premiers who stood against Trudeau\u2019s constitutional reforms in 1981, with its promise of a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He ultimately agreed but only after the inclusion of an unusual escape hatch: the notwithstanding clause, allowing provinces to override certain Charter rights. While the taboo clause is invoked by the Alberta and Saskatchewan governments of Smith and Moe, progressives decry it as a tool of anticonstitutional majoritarianism.\nContesting Canada\u2019s post-Charter legal regime is the bailiwick of another Calgary School luminary, Ted Morton, who served in senior ministerial roles in Alberta\u2019s conservative governments. He also chaired the UCP government\u2019s Fair Deal Panel on Alberta\u2019s place in Confederation, which recommended strategic referenda as leverage against Ottawa. In opinion pieces for the National Post, he\u2019s backed ready use of the notwithstanding clause47 and questions the very legitimacy of the duty to consult.48\u00a0His best known academic work, cowritten with Rainer Knopff, The Charter Revolution and the Court Party (2013), buttresses the an\u00adti-Laurentian critique, arguing that the Charter\u2019s legacy is an expression of progressive power politics masquerading as legal neutralism. Morton and Knopff lay some blame on the text itself.\nDespite the Charter\u2019s broadly negative orientation, they see its substantive provisions,49 for equality and minority official language (French and English) rights in particular,50 as readily weaponized by partisans. Judges leverage the full discretionary power associated with Canada\u2019s \u201cliving tree\u201d judicial framework, treating rights as open-ended principles to advance controversial policies.51 On the authors\u2019 account, interest groups linked with LGBTQ, indigenous, refugee, and other progressive causes saw the writing on the wall and an ideological feeding frenzy soon ensued.52 Instead of pressing their claims within the realm of democratic politics, these groups are described as enacting them through the courts, disguising their particular grievances within the universal language of the Charter and instigating a dramatic expansion of positive entitlements.53\nWhile clearly longing for a rebellion against elites in the \u201cCourt Party,\u201d a term appropriated from Anglo-American Whig history, the authors are at pains to distinguish their position from a purely populist one.54 They insist that they do not seek to rebalance the scales of power in favor of majoritarianism, or reprise the role of an aggrieved \u201cCountry Party\u201d in the demotic style of the old Reform movement.55 Instead, they argue that Canadian pluralism is best served through parliamentary supremacy where policy debates can be pursued via healthy representative democracy.56 In this light, the Madisonian republican logic of Morton\u2019s defenses of the notwithstanding clause and referenda becomes clearer: they are supposed to serve not as populist weapons but as checks and balances against federal overreach and judicial fallibility.57\nThe Calgary School is not monolithic, however. It encompasses an eclectic cast whose contrasts are evident. Morton rails against Trump, while Cooper seems more favorable. And yet their arguments converge on a persistent conviction that at so many critical turns in Canada\u2019s evolution, the West and its distinct ways of life have been suppressed. In Cooper\u2019s presentation, whether Canadian elites called themselves liberals or Tories, they inevitably included too many self-dealing statists who broadly saw the West as a blank slate upon which to exert Central Canadian schemes of economic extraction and political control.58\nThus, Alberta may be Canada\u2019s well-off province, a land of oil and honey, with one of the country\u2019s highest concentrations of millionaires and sprawling rural estates matching anything from Dallas or Yellowstone, but it is precisely such combinations of material wealth and wounded status that have so often fueled revolutionary energies.\nWhen we consider this revolt today in its geopolitical context, it can\u2019t come as a surprise that so many Canadians are paranoid that Western sovereignty is really a ploy or stepping stone to something else entirely, namely annexation to the United States. This view holds that separatism is Americanization and that autonomism is Americanization-lite, a matter not only of leaning full tilt into the West\u2019s role as supplier of raw commodities for the Americans but of flirting with the fateful logic that asymmetrical relationship could ultimately entail.\nBut where do Alberta\u2019s grassroots separatists, those populists no one seems to trust, actually stand on all this? Research on their attitudes is patchy, but the media filters a stream of images that stir the garrison mentality. Scenes of separatist rallies show seas of MAGA hats and signs that read \u201cAlberta: 1st or 51st.\u201d Many observers will ask themselves: are the messy American overtones surprising? Alberta, \u201cthe Texas of Canada,\u201d has always been seen as more American than the rest of the country. Albertans host more Americans or American descendants than any other province, some tied to migration from a century or so ago, while others are more recent transplants seeking fortune amid Alberta\u2019s energy booms.\nThe province\u2019s most famous tourist town, Banff, fills up with cowboy hats, especially in its Montana-themed bar. (Though listen closely to their accents and you\u2019ll hear a large chunk of them are Australians on Commonwealth visas.) Much of this is lighthearted cosplay. But some Albertans, like Jeffrey Rath, take it more seriously. His APP group reportedly held meetings in Washington with administration officials. Those discussions are said to have covered a proposed $500 billion U.S. credit facility to support a financially independent Alberta.59\nThe charge of American quisling is an oft-repeated one in the sovereignty debate, and it is wielded effectively by federalism\u2019s supporters. \u201cWe\u2019re fighting against foreign interference, particularly from the United States, where separatists are being hosted by high-ranking government officials,\u201d says Alberta\u2019s former deputy premier, Thomas Lukaszuk, who is now leader of the highly visible federalist organization Forever Canadian. As he sees it, the separatist movement \u201coriginated with MAGA and with Covid. Now these individuals talk with their American counterparts.\u201d The federalist side of the debate is, naturally, also keen to underscore the economic damage any lurch toward separatism would inflict, an argument that draws from Quebec\u2019s experience with capital flight. As Lukaszuk argues, \u201cInvestment is looking for two things: a good return on investment, but also stability and predictability from a regulatory and political perspective. What we have right now is a great sense of uncertainty.\u201d\nWhile the wider convictions of Alberta\u2019s ordinary separatists can be hard to pin down, one point stands out clearly: as a sincere proposition, separation is strikingly na\u00efve both economically and geopolitically. Premier Smith herself has put the price tag for secession, even just initially, at $400 billion, meaning about $80,000 for every Albertan, though this estimate is contested by critics who argue the loss would be even greater.60\u00a0Would existing trade agreements still apply? Could Alberta\u2019s exports still rely on routes and pipelines regulated or owned by Canada? Never mind its own police, what about its own army?\nThese questions are sometimes addressed by sovereigntists, but the hard truth is that an independent Alberta would be as naked as it is negatively free. It would immediately lose the protection and leverage that come from living within a diversified and mature sovereign federation. Let\u2019s assume serious separatists envision genuine autonomy paired with a squishy friendship with the United States on the basis of free trade. Perhaps the separatists believe that exiting Canada is a matter of switching allegiance from one sovereign to another and ultimately adopting the latter\u2019s social contract. But then their talk of Alberta sovereignty could just be a sign that they confuse the security of the subject with the power of the Leviathan.\nFlanagan, skeptical of wholesale independence, agrees quasi-political integration is how things would likely go: \u201cI think we\u2019d become a kind of American satellite. We might retain nominal independence . . . but we\u2019d be a very small player, with probably a hostile relationship with Canada. . . . This might not be a bad life, but that\u2019s what it would be.\u201d Meanwhile, Cooper sees closer encounters with American hegemony as a risk, but an acceptable one. \u201cOf course, there are dangers [to separatism]. There are even greater dangers, I\u2019d say, staying part of Laurentian Canada. Life is not risk-free. . . . The problem is whether or not a sufficient number of Albertans are sufficiently unhappy with the consequences and the way that things have been implemented, not by the Americans, but by the Laurentians,\u201d says Cooper. \u201c[But] Canada is not, and never has been, a federation.\u201d\nDemocracy in Canada\nIf Cooper\u2019s old friend George Grant were alive today, he would probably see the Alberta sovereignty movement as a belated farce amid the existing tragedy of Canada\u2019s End of History. Yet there\u2019s another possibility that encourages us to see the West\u2019s unrest as more than an alien element, channeling demonic American forces and inscrutable Rocky Mountain gods.\nIt\u2019s true that the consequential thinkers we\u2019ve considered promote non-Canadian ideologies: Madisonian, Hayekian, originalist. The Calgary School tends toward the socially conservative, but on economics their thinking can feel a little too laissez-faire for quasi-dirigiste Canada. Yet the Court Party to which they oppose themselves is not wholly Canadian either, with inclinations alternating between Toryist, cosmopolitan, Keynesian, Rawlsian, etc.\nBoth opposing currents in Canadian life participate in broader international debates and, whether consciously or unconsciously, borrow from their American equivalents: Canadian Conservatives adopt MAGA strategy and aesthetics while Liberals look to Democratic consultants and the latest \u201cdiversity, equity and inclusion\u201d vocabularies. This is not because Canada lacks its own intellectual traditions, associated, for instance, with the hallowed Grant, Marshall McLuhan, Ursula Franklin, Harold Innis, Harold Cardinal, and others whose names risk lapsing into obscurity. It\u2019s likely just because of how much easier it is to graft from American mass media broadcasts. Why confuse the audience at a campaign event in Calgary or Toronto with arcane references to Grantian metaphysics or McLuhanist media theory when derivative scripts are available from the Tea Party or the most recent 92nd Street Y lecture series? It is a way of signaling one\u2019s credentials in elite crowds that nonetheless betrays what one young commentator has described as the \u201cintellectual poverty\u201d of the Canadian political imagination.61\nAnd it\u2019s notable that within these elite quarters, both camps have tended to look scornfully at the worldwide populist uprisings of the past decade. In their subtle ways, the Calgary School can channel this same elite mistrust, whether directed against the unstructured populism of early Reform or the \u201cfactions\u201d of today\u2019s grassroots separatists. The broader suspicion for populism tends to see it as a grubby, illiberal phenomenon: intolerant mobs speaking for \u201cWe the People\u201d where the people are defined by populist tribunes in exclusivist terms: a race, a class, or a region like the prairies. Donald Trump\u2019s and Bernie Sanders\u2019s followers are viewed as embodying just this kind of democratic excess, a striving tyranny of the majority. To such antiestablishment forces, on the other hand, many liberals, broadly defined across conservative and progressive varieties, counterpose a more pluralist, minority-focused, individualist, or even universalist creed. There may be merits to this thesis, expressed in so many liberal self-help books over the past decade, but it often downplays the deep feuds and mutual intolerances within the liberal family itself.\nThe differences between liberalism\u2019s right- and left-wing incarnations perhaps looked not as profound in the 1990s heyday of Fukuyamaist thought. For years, the center looked like it would hold. But today\u2019s material crises of inequality, environment, social disintegration, and the threat of new technologies unsettle consensus politics and help force liberalism\u2019s contradictions to the surface.\nPopulism has had many faces in Canada: Reform\u2019s right-wing rural firebrands, L\u00e9vesque\u2019s social democratic nationalists, the NDP\u2019s farmer-worker coalitions and their contemporary descendants. All dip outside the mainstream consensus in distinct ways. But it is a little rich for the liberal intelligentsia to treat right-wing populists, who push sweeping withdrawal from health care and economic management, and left-wing populists, with their opposing instincts, as total ideological aliens. For decades, the liberal intelligentsia has tickled itself with theoretically baroque versions of just such visions. Consider the most prestigious right- and left-liberal theorists of our era: Friedrich Hayek (who strongly influenced Flanagan) and John Rawls (a leading influence on the progressive wing of Canadian liberalism). Hayek publicly showed the younger Rawls a certain politesse; after all, both made lofty gestures toward pluralism and proceduralism.\nYet their mature blueprints are effectively designed to ensure that the other type of liberal could never be tolerated as a governing force. According to Rawls\u2019s Theory of Justice (1971), a just liberal society could tolerate inequality so long as it worked to the greatest benefit of its least advantaged members; that theory was revised in Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001). Convinced that growing inequality and wealth concentration were destroying the health of liberal democratic life, he argued that only liberal socialism and property-owning democracy satisfied the principles of justice. Not even welfare-state capitalism made the cut any longer. If this vision were made sovereign, its state would be structurally disposed to treat right-wing liberals like Hayek as kooks in small numbers and enemies in large. But the inverse is also true. Hayek may have tolerated a minimal welfare state. Yet the thinly democratic models he outlined, presuming that labor unions, any major form of state planning, and ambitious \u201csocial justice\u201d schemes all violated the rule of law, batten down the hatches against the mature Rawls as firmly in theory as General Pinochet did to leftist parties and unions in practice.\nHayek, no populist, may have argued that a truly liberal model like his could take hold of government, not through mass mobilization but through gradual shifts in elite ideas. But conservatives or libertarians with a neoliberal bent who decide that they have been illegitimately marginalized from state power for too long may become less patient. When we confront the deep tensions between left- and right-liberalism, or between the constitutional and economic agendas of progressives and conservatives in Canada and beyond, it becomes easier to see why sincere actors on both sides turn toward populist vehicles like mass protests, notwithstanding clauses, and referenda to advance their aims. The difference between populists and liberals may be one of style and manners as much as substance. Knopff and Morton are surely right that democracy is not just a cause of polarization but one of its palliatives\u2014though it is not clear why classical liberal rules of the game should be regarded as more universal or neutral than progressive ones.\nThe average trucker, rig pig, or shop-floor organizer, the stuff of Canadian populist myth, is usually too busy to worry about such esoteric debates. But that doesn\u2019t make them any less moved by the causes of freedom and justice and their kaleidoscopic meanings. MAGA-like figures in the mold of Sylvestre and Rath give sensible people much to be suspicious about. But that does not make the average blue-collar Albertan aspirationally American. While Alberta sovereigntism is likely an enduring movement, for now, only one in five Albertans favors separatism proper.62\u00a0Support has been trending downward as we approach the referendum. As for the other four Albertans, their attitude toward Americans hungrily eyeing their province would likely echo that Danish MP\u2019s comment about would-be Greenland annexationists: \u201cI hope [you\u2019re] kept away from young women, because that\u2019s the mentality of a rapist.\u201d63\nIf Canada has a meaningful future, it will be a democratic one. Only democracies foreclose the end of history by unsettling elite consensus and articulating new futures. And democracies are not homogeneous, to be governed forever by a Court Party. They are agonistic, within messy, confusing, contested limits. A healthy Canadian future would have to include the \u201cCountry Party,\u201d that is, Western and other countervailing forces to the Laurentian core. We have examined the Country Party\u2019s conservative manifestations, but it has a left wing, too, in the NDP, which spearheaded signature Canadian institutions, notably its single-payer health care system. Today, the party\u2019s roots in the West and relationship to organized labor feel tenuous; nonetheless, it remains among the most penetrating critical observers of Canadian democracy\u2019s oligarchic drift and growing economic inequalities.\nCanada\u2019s overdue turn toward strategic autonomy runs up against a dizzying array of self-determination struggles\u2014labor, indigenous, Albertan, Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois\u2014amid a historic reckoning over national identity and purpose. There is no way to permanently harmonize these struggles, and there is a temptation to ride roughshod over the weaker forces in the name of a higher unity. But it is that very state of constant unsettledness and genuine diversity\u2014not the trite slogan but the raw social and historical fact\u2014that also provides the sources of pluralism, dynamism, and creativity that define and distinguish Canada at its best.\nThis article originally appeared in American Affairs Volume X, Number 3 (Fall 2026): 219\u201340.\nNotes\n1 David J. Bercuson and Barry Cooper, \u201cThe Rise of the Republic of the Northwest,\u201d Maclean\u2019s, March 12, 2019.\n2 Elections Alberta, 2021 Senate Election and Referendum Vote: A Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the October 18, 2021 Provincial Senate Election and Referendum Vote (Edmonton: Elections Alberta, September 26, 2022).\n3 Tyler Dawson, \u201cUCP Leadership Contender Danielle Smith Wants Alberta to Ignore Federal Laws It Doesn\u2019t Like,\u201d National Post, June 17, 2022.\n4 Rob Anderson, Barry Cooper, and Derek From, Free Alberta Strategy: A Strong, Free & Sovereign Alberta Within Canada (Edmonton: Alberta Institute, 2021).\n5 Jordan Kanygin, \u201cDanielle Smith\u2019s Proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act Would Create a \u2018Banana Republic\u2019: Kenney,\u201d CTV News, September 6, 2022.\n6 \u201cTrump Takes Another Shot on Truth Social at Canada Becoming 51st State,\u201d CityNews Toronto, December 18, 2024.\n7 Global Affairs Canada, Office of the Chief Economist, \u201cGrowing Canada\u2019s Exports to Overseas Markets by 50%\u20142024 Update,\u201d Global Affairs Canada, September 9, 2025; Canada, Department of National Defence, \u201cSupplementary Estimates (DND and CAF), 21 November 2024: Spending,\u201d Canada.ca, March 21, 2025.\n8 James M. Lindsay, \u201cCanada Hedges Against the United States,\u201d Council on Foreign Relations, February 4, 2026; Colin Robertson and Maureen Boyd, The Diplomats Guide to Canada 2026 (Ottawa: Canadian Global Affairs Institute, 2026).\n9 Taylor Lambert, \u201cReferendum Bid by Alberta Separatists Stuck in Legal Limbo, Even If Petition Has Enough Names,\u201d CBC News, May 2026.\n10 Alessia Passafiume, \u201cAFN National Chief Rebukes Alberta Separation Movement During Meeting with King Charles,\u201d Canadian Press, June 2, 2026.\n11 Tom Flanagan, Jack Mintz, and Ted Morton, \u201cAlberta\u2019s Future: Concluding Thoughts,\u201d in Moment of Truth: How to Think About Alberta\u2019s Future, ed. Jack M. Mintz, F. L. Morton, and Tom Flanagan (Toronto: Sutherland House Books, 2020), 439.\n12 Timothy Caulfield, \u201cAlberta\u2019s Separatists Are Chasing a Total Cowboy Fantasy,\u201d Walrus, March 18, 2026.\n13 Jack Farrell, \u201cAlberta Government Files Appeal of Court Decision to Throw Out Separatist Referendum,\u201d Canadian Press, June 11, 2026.\n14 \u201cFederal Election Results 2025,\u201d CBC News Interactive, accessed June 22, 2026.\n15 Joel Dryden, \u201cSupport for Alberta Separatism Flat, Struggling High Earners More Likely Supporters: Poll,\u201d CBC News, April 28, 2026; Conrad Sweatman, \u201cSeparatism Strong Among Majority of Tory Backers in Manitoba,\u201d Winnipeg Free Press, June 30, 2025; Alec Salloum, \u201cOver 40 Per Cent of Sask. Party Voters Support a Referendum on Separation: Poll,\u201d Leader-Post, June 26, 2025.\n16 Dan Spector, \u201cSupport for Quebec Sovereignty at 30-Year Low, According to New Poll,\u201d Global News, March 4, 2026.\n17 Fakiha Baig, \u201cAlberta\u2019s Separatist Movement Is an Outlier Among Global Secession Efforts, Experts Say,\u201d Global News, May 27, 2026.\n18 Adam Hunter, \u201cPremier Moe Wants Saskatchewan to Be a \u2018Nation within a Nation\u2019 by Increasing Autonomy,\u201d CBC News, November 9, 2021.\n19 Government of Alberta, Choose Alberta, Canada (Edmonton: Alberta Jobs, Economy, Trade and Immigration, September 2025).\n20 Government of Alberta, \u201cGross Domestic Product (GDP),\u201d Alberta Economic Dashboard, accessed June 2026.\n21 Government of Alberta, \u201cLabour Productivity,\u201d Alberta Economic Dashboard, accessed June 2026.\n22 Canada, Western Economic Diversification Canada, Grow West: A Western Canada Growth Strategy (Edmonton: Government of Canada, 2019), 11. Note: \u201cAlberta and Saskatchewan\u2019s growth is three times more volatile than the average for all provinces, mainly due to their higher dependence on resource sectors. Overall, British Columbia and Manitoba have more diverse industries and employment. However, communities and regions in both of these provinces also face major challenges when local mines or forestry mills close due to low commodity prices.\u201d\n23 Barry Wilson, \u201cDiversification Minister Sees Major Role for Agriculture,\u201d Western Producer, September 4, 1997; Ted Morton and Meredith McDonald, \u201cThe Siren Song of Economic Diversification: Alberta\u2019s Legacy of Loss,\u201d School of Public Policy Research Papers 9, no. 7 (2016): 1\u201328.\n24 \u201cProvincial and Territorial Energy Profiles: Canada,\u201d Canada Energy Regulator, accessed March 26, 2026.\n25 Natural Resources Canada, \u201cPotash Facts,\u201d Government of Canada, January 29, 2026.\n26 Natural Resources Canada, \u201cUranium and Nuclear Power Facts,\u201d Government of Canada, February 27, 2026.\n27 David Williams, \u201cCanada\u2019s Post-Pandemic Economic Recovery Was the 5th Weakest in the OECD,\u201d Business Council of British Columbia, November 7, 2023.\n28 Michelle Bellefontaine, \u201cAlberta Leading Country in Economic Growth While Rest of Canada Stalls: Report,\u201d CBC News, June 2026.\n29 Reuters, \u201cCanada Trade Surplus Hits 15-Month High in April on Soaring Crude Prices,\u201d Globe and Mail, June 9, 2026.\n30 J. Craig Stone, \u201cCanada Finally Has a Defence Industrial Strategy: But Does It Say the Right Things?,\u201d Canadian Global Affairs Institute, April 2026.\n31 Government of Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, \u201cPrime Minister Carney Unveils Canada\u2019s New Automotive Strategy to Protect Jobs and Position Our Country as a Global Leader in Next-Generation Vehicle Manufacturing,\u201d Government of Canada, February 2026.\n32 \u201cPrime Minister Carney Announces Forthcoming National Electricity Strategy,\u201d Prime Minister\u2019s Office of Canada, May 14, 2026.\n33 CBC News staff, \u201cAlberta to Use Notwithstanding Clause to End Teachers\u2019 Strike,\u201d CBC News, September 5, 2023.\n34 Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, The Big Shift: The Seismic Change in Canadian Politics, Business, and Culture and What It Means for Our Future (Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2013), 11\u201315.\n35 Bricker and Ibbitson, The Big Shift, 7.\n36 \u201cPrime Minister Carney Breaks Ground on the Contrec\u0153ur Terminal Expansion at the Port of Montr\u00e9al,\u201d Prime Minister\u2019s Office of Canada, April 9, 2026.\n37 Kate Helmore, \u201cProposed B.C. Pipeline Terminus, Port Expansion Referred to Major Projects Office,\u201d Globe and Mail, July 16, 2026.\n38 Rob Gillies, \u201cAlberta and Ontario Propose a Pipeline to Carry Western Canada\u2019s Oil to the East,\u201d Associated Press, July 6, 2026.\n39 Owing to a host of logistical and financial challenges, there is widespread skepticism that the Port of Churchill will ever fulfill its full promise as a northern trade hub. See, for instance: Bryce Hoye, \u201cPremier\u2019s Timeline for Shipping Liquified Natural Gas Out of Churchill a \u2018Fabrication,\u2019 Tory Leader Says,\u201d CBC News, April 20, 2026.\n40 Scotiabank Economics, \u201cCanada and U.S. Economics: Trade Stats\u2013January 31, 2025,\u201d Scotiabank, January 31, 2025. \u201cThe provinces most reliant on US markets for imports (therefore potentially being susceptible to large impacts from retaliatory tariffs) are Saskatchewan (80%), Manitoba (76%), and Alberta (63%).\u201d\n41 Alicia Planincic, \u201cWith 85% Flowing to the U.S., Crude Oil Is Canada\u2019s Biggest Export Diversification Opportunity,\u201d Hub, June 5, 2026.\n42 Barry Cooper, \u201cFortis et Liber: Alberta\u2019s Future in the Canadian Federation,\u201d C2C Journal, May 2024; Barry Cooper, \u201cAlberta\u2019s Coming Declaration of Independence?,\u201d Law & Liberty, June 21, 2021; Barry Cooper, \u201cChallenges for Independence,\u201d in Moment of Truth: How to Think About Alberta\u2019s Future, 373.\n43 Cooper, \u201cFortis et Liber\u201d: \u201cBetween the Red River resistance and the truckers\u2019 Freedom Convoy, over 150 years apart, came Prime Minister Macdonald\u2019s grossly misnamed \u2018National Policy\u2019, which subordinated the economic vitality of Prairie agriculture to Laurentian industrial commerce. The National Policy amounted to simple exploitation of the West.\u201d\n44 Cooper, \u201cFortis et Liber.\u201d\n45 \u201cThe Waffle Manifesto: For an Independent Socialist Canada,\u201d Socialist History Project, accessed June 2026.\n46 Luke Savage, \u201cThe Red-Tory Philosopher of Canadian Nationalism,\u201d Jacobin, September 17, 2019.\n47 Ted Morton, \u201cProvinces Demanded \u2018Notwithstanding\u2019 Powers for Good Reason. They Should Use Them,\u201d National Post, September 14, 2018.\n48 Ted Morton, \u201cAlberta Has Seen the Liberals Sabotage Its Historic Rights,\u201d Calgary Herald, November 30, 2019.\n49 F. L. (Ted) Morton and Rainer Knopff, The Charter Revolution and the Court Party (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 33\u201338.\n50 Morton and Knopff, The Charter Revolution and the Court Party, 33\u201338.\n51 Morton and Knopff, \u201cJudges and the Charter Revolution,\u201d in The Charter Revolution and the Court Party.\n52 Morton and Knopff, \u201cThe Court Party,\u201d in The Charter Revolution and the Court Party.\n53 Morton and Knopff, \u201cThe Court Party,\u201d in The Charter Revolution and the Court Party.\n54 Morton and Knopff, \u201cWhat\u2019s Wrong with the Charter Revolution & the Court Party?,\u201d in The Charter Revolution and the Court Party.\n55 Rainer Knopff, \u201cPopulism and the Politics of Rights: The Dual Attack on Representative Democracy,\u201d Canadian Journal of Political Science 31, no. 4 (1998): 683\u2013705.\n56 Morton and Knopff, The Charter Revolution and the Court Party, 153\u201360.\n57 Dave Snow and F. L. (Ted) Morton, \u201cBackdoor Constitutional Amendments to the Notwithstanding Clause and the Risk to the Integrity of the Federation,\u201d Constitutional Theory Monitor, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, May 20, 2026; Ted Morton and Jared Wesley, \u201cIs a Referendum a Good Way to Make a Decision?,\u201d Alberta Views, May 1, 2020.\n58 There is a lively debate about whether Canada\u2019s hegemonic founding political traditions should be read as Toryist or liberal. Members of the Calgary School have welcomed the latter suggestion, as Cooper commented in our interview: \u201cI think it was all about power. That was what Sir John A. [Macdonald] also wanted. He compared himself with Mazzini, and then later with Bismarck. . . . The liberalism was window dressing. I think that what these guys were really interested in was Empire.\u201d\n59 Jessica Murphy and Nadine Yousif, \u201c\u2018Respect Canadian Sovereignty,\u2019 Carney Tells US Officials after They Meet Alberta Separatists,\u201d BBC News, January 29, 2026.\n60 Rick Bell, \u201cAlberta\u2019s $400-Billion Independence Plan Faces Sharp Criticism,\u201d Winnipeg Sun, June 2, 2026.\n61 Ben Woodfinden, \u201cAre You Angry Enough?,\u201d Without Diminishment, July 16, 2026.\n62 In January, nearly one in three Albertans said they would support Alberta independence. In early June, that fell to less than one in five. As the referendum approaches, Albertans appear to be sobering up and getting divorce jitters. See: \u201cLimited and Declining Support for Separation in Alberta,\u201d Ipsos, June 5, 2026.\n63 Jennifer Bowers Bahney, \u201cDanish Politician Accuses Stephen Miller of Having \u2018Mentality of a Rapist\u2019 Towards Greenland in Shocking MS NOW Interview,\u201d Yahoo News, January 17, 2026.\nPhoto by Provincial Archives of Alberta, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.\nYou have reached your limit of 1 free\narticle this month.\nPlease subscribe to receive unlimited access to\nthe site and continue reading this article.\nHave an account?\nSign In\nAbout the Author\nConrad Sweatman is a reporter based in Winnipeg.\nPrevious\nThe Man Who Was Friday: Global Islamism after Unipolarity\nBy\nPhilip Cunliffe\nNext\nRestoring the American Arsenal: The Case for a Defense-Critical Patent Box in the United States\nBy\nMichael Lind",
    "published_at": "2026-08-20T04:14:00+00:00",
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    "ai_headline": "Unrest in the West: Anger and Aspiration in the Canadian Prairies",
    "ai_simplified_title": "Alberta Considers Secession from Canada Amidst Growing Unrest",
    "ai_excerpt": "Fall Volume X Number August Unrest in the West Anger and Aspiration in the Canadian Prairies By Conrad Sweatman In a article for Canada s Maclean s magazine political scientist",
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