The spectre of separation haunting Alberta nowadays may deeply divide the province, but almost everyone seems to agree about one thing: No matter what happens, no matter what the courts say, no matter whether or not the separatists really have enough signatures to get a referendum on the ballot, Premier Danielle Smith will see to it that their referendum is there anyway.
This may not be universally acknowledged just yet, but a consensus is emerging. It needs to be said that this is not a sign we’re living in a democracy with a healthy respect for the rule of law.
Inside the brutalist Edmonton Court of King’s Bench building yesterday, lawyers for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Blackfoot Confederacy were arguing in favour of an injunction to stop the separation petition by the so-called Stay Free Alberta front group for separatist elements within the Premier Smith’s United Conservative Party.
In a nutshell, they and other lawyers for Treaty 6, 7 and 8 First Nations argue in the case brought by the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation that using Alberta’s so-called citizen-initiative legislation to try to break up the country violates treaty rights enshrined in the Canadian Constitution. The CBC and Alberta Native News both published detailed summaries of the technical arguments made yesterday by the First Nations’ lawyers.
Outside, the courthouse in Churchill Square about 300 people gathered under gloomy skies to hear chiefs of the province’s First Nations, many wearing traditional regalia, express their deep distrust of the premier and her government, and of the federal government as well.
“People were asking why would I meet with her,” Piikani Chief Troy Knowlton told the crowd. “Well there’s an old gangster adage that also applies to politicians: You keep your friends close. You keep your enemies closer.”
“We’ve got to know what their next steps are. We’ve got to let them know, instead of hearing through the media, what our statements are, our concerns are. I was able to tell her face to face, ‘Your separatism agenda is nothing more than political fantasy,’” said Chief Knowlton, who is also president of the Blackfoot Confederacy. “‘You allow the white supremacist racists and bigots to be able to come out of their homes and yell and scream. …’”
“First Nations are more united than ever in our history,” he said.
Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation warned supporters not to be tricked by the apparent differences between the federal and Alberta governments as they rush to develop resource extraction projects without appropriate consultation.
Comparing Prime Minister Mark Carney to Pontius Pilate washing his hands of responsibility to First Nations people before handing treaty land over to Alberta, Chief Paul warned rally participants, “They don’t say it, but they go hand in hand.”
Thomas Lukaszuk, proponent of the successful Forever Canadian petition that the Smith Government has changed its own rules to make it easier to ignore, suggested on social media yesterday that separatist leader Mitch Sylvestre would be delighted if the court issued an injunction. “This way he’ll never need to prove that he got 177,000 signatures (I doubt he did) and Danielle Smith will give him a referendum anyhow.”
Indeed, reporting by CBC political commentator Jason Markusoff last week suggests that’s exactly what could happen. If the First Nations win in court, Mr. Markusoff wrote, “this could set up a Plan B for separatist leader Mitch Sylvestre: appeal directly to Premier Danielle Smith to put the referendum to leave Canada on October’s ballot, regardless of what the court had just said.”
No one who has been paying attention to Ms. Smith and her apparently separatist dominated cabinet and caucus can doubt that this is a real possibility. The UCP has changed the law to allow electoral mischief by their separatist allies, and then changed it again to make it difficult for anyone else to use it.
Sadly, it keeps getting harder to imagine that there’s anyone still in her caucus or cabinet willing to publicly stand up for Canada, or the rule of law.
Simply put, Danielle Smith and her UCP gang are traitors. They make up their own laws, while disregarding the actual laws. These First Nations chiefs have a right to stand up to these separatists, and the fake Cherokee ancestry premier, Danielle Smith. Hope they, and the courts kick these separatists and the UCP in the butt.
Well said, I completely agree!
Why is this responsibility and cost falling on Native folk, the least able to bear it?
Carney should just come out and tell them LOUDLY, “Alberta cannot separate because it is unlawful under the constitution”. Sure Alberta will hate him but the rest of the country will cheer. Carney knows what the results will be–he worked through Brexit.
We’re not dealing with a logical entity here. We’re dealing with essentially, the same kind of uprisings that Iran, Syria, Libya were forced to deal with–insurgents and paid-for agitators designed to break up the state and make it dysfunctional for the benefit of the US Empire to add it as a territory or at least, neutralize it, turn it into a failed state and rob it.
Why the mainstream media is not pointing this out every minute and a half, I don’t know.
This can’t stand.
The mainstream Canadian media does not in any way ever address actions of the Empire as such. There is an imperial story and corporate and state media does not deviate from it in this country. The Canadian state has been complicit in many of the most diabolical undertakings of the Empire, so it would be an extraordinary change of course for Canadian media to talk about this particular phenomenon. When we have the Carny Banker supporting “with regret” an absolutely naked criminal act of aggression against Iran, it’s clear that the US has nothing to fear from Canada. Having seen our great French ally criticize Iran as a threat to “regional stability”, I looked up the number of French military interventions in Africa since the dismemberment of the Soviet Union in 1991. The number is over thirty. I bring this up simply because it is demonstrates the absurd nature of people’s beliefs about Canada and its relationship to Empire. Canada bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 after the Empire declared <50 bodies in a ditch after a firefight to be a genocide, but another of our great partners, who shares our Canadian values, has killed at minimum 70 000 people in Gaza in the last 30 months. Conspiracy theories!
Well you’re again, not wrong at all, Murphy. Your “conspiracy theories” are simply historical facts, much as we might not all want to face them.
We’ve been feeding the Evil Empire’s war machine with lumber, aluminium, steel, minerals and oil ever since they ran their stars and stripes up the flagpole and before that–we fed Britain’s.
Being a realist, I know we can’t entirely get out from all of this but there’s a great deal we could be doing…and we’re not.
The purchase of f35s at this point by the feds, is criminal. Not just because the cost of one of them would pay for the entire country’s healthcare for a decade but because they’re only good for one thing–bombing other countries. If we’re going to claim we’re only defensive…then buy defensive weaponry or at least, nothing that reaches past the meth lab we’re geographically forced to live on top, of; throw in some defensive capabilities around our harbours and arctic and find some way to reach Mexico and back for trading that doesn’t rely on the goodwill of said meth lab’s harbours and defy their ability to blockade, ours.
Iran is making a mockery of America’s “military superiority” and good for them.
I don’t want American arms manufacturers making bank on our limited defence budget.
We aren’t that wealthy.
B: Why do you think the mainstream media won’t talk about this? They support and enable the UCP, as much as possible. Postmedia sure does.
Agree. Postmedia certainly appear to be fans of Smith and her UCP and I would add, PP. All that the national print media in Canada appear to do is slam Carney and the federal Liberals. I’m sure the msm will be out there supporting Smith and her separation act. This is really not a good time to run a separation vote. What does Smith think she is going to get out of separating from Canada? Becoming the 51st state for the U.S.A. Is the woman mad or just treasonous.
@e.a.f
Of course they’re slamming Carney. I’m no fan of the guy for many reasons but they have a very specific American agenda, here.
Kicking us in the face as much as they can so Trumpty will look like a hero when he guts the CUSMA deal and we’re forced to either walk away or capitulate to the point where we are starved out of existence. Which suits them just fine because they’re looking for cheap real estate and resources to mop up because, they’ll claim, we were mean to them when we refused to buy bourbon and stopped visiting their overpriced tourist traps.
Even if Carney capitulates, they’re pretty sure the rest of us will not be so compliant.
Thus, better to have their fifth column via Dixie Dani, set up in advance.
@Anonymous
Even our more central media continues to sane-wash the lunatic in our basement. No reason they wouldn’t sanewash Dixie Dani and her Merry Band of Bonkerites.
Of course, most of them are owned by American corporations so they don’t exactly have our interests in their black hearts.
Assuming the referendum goes ahead, if it does manage to generate a ‘separation’ victory it will be a perfect election issue in next year’s election (assuming there is one). The NDP can run on a platform that they will ignore the referendum result and keep Alberta in Canada. I assume the UCP would pretty much have to run on a platform of pulling Alberta out of Canada.
Piikani Chief Troy Knowlton chose the right analogy. We have a government in Alberta that behaves like gangsters.
This organized ring sees itself as above the law and rewrites the laws accordingly. The saddest thing is that our PM Mark Carney has forgotten where he came from.
Of course wasting taxpayers money is no concern for these Reformers as they have proven time and time again without any consequences for our children and grandchildren’s future. They just don’t care.
We all know what having a referendum will do to Alberta’s economy – at least those of us who pay attention to history do.
In some ways I want the question asked. That way, Smith & the separafools get their well deserved and long overdue sit down and shut the **** up. Furthermore, for Smith, asking the question and losing, badly, will be the final electoral coffin nail, even if the referendum is a year in advance of a provincial election.
The downside is the harm done to Albertans.
Ngl if you want to Balkanize something destroying the economy is a feature, not a bug.
Educational resources to read! Find the full doc on albertaprosperityproject.com
https://albertaprosperityproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Summary-of-APP-Plan-20250715.pdf
It’s about time for Nenshi to put out a firm but diplomatic press release. The fascists will wilt in terror.
The NDP launched a campaign yesterday:
https://www.albertandp.ca/its-time-take-action-alberta-canada
I also *highly* doubt these losers got the required amount of signatures. When their inevitable piss pants referendum fails can we pack them all up and ship them to Montana? Like Castro did when he emptied their prisons and sent them all to Florida.
So do I. When Lukazuk passed 300 k , he said so, with number attached. I also note the separation fools came out with “we have enough” (no number attached) the day after a National Post article pointed out how they didn’t pay attention to the Alberta chief electoral officer telling them to get legal land description from rural signers – therefore many of their alleged signatures are invalid.
With the UCP and the immoral people running it, all Albertans are getting a hard lesson in just how fragile a democracy is. I mean having a government of any major party in power for a time, but, governing in the best interests of ALL Albertan’s. That sure isn’t the traitorous UCP imo.
Not only are we likely to get a question about separation, but we are likely to get the one that Smith and the separatists want, not the one that was in the first petition and likely the one with more signatures. This is a very important thing to remember.
So in this way the process that Smith set up and then changed, really just pays lip service to public consultation. She might as well not bothered to have petitions with questions and just asked the question she wanted, but of course she wanted to window dressing of it appearing to come from the public.
Like MAGA, Smith is much better at appearing to be populist than her predecessor, but also like them, these appearances can be deceiving. This becomes apparent for instance when a number of First Nations feel their input will not be appreciated by the current UCP government. Smith is good at listening to those who want to say what she wants to hear, not so good to listening to others.
Under Smith, the UCP has become a defacto separatist party although not quite officially which I suppose gives her some deniability, plausible or otherwise if the public eventually sours on her separatist leanings, which is quite possible. And a bonus for Smith is every day talking about separatism is a day not talking about things like her AHS scandals or over crowded hospital emergencies.
Now would be a fantastic opportunity for a vast united front against the UCP and their separatist fellow travellers. The ABNDP have started (finally) to bare their teeth in opposition to this idiocy. Joining with Alberta’s First Nations peoples will enhance the opposition. It’s already been revealed by the separatists that they do not consider First Nations to be “real people”, so we already know they are ready to engage in whatever stupid rage baiting they have planned. And since they have decided to accept Elon Musk’s weird endorsement for their cause, we can take the next step and say they are actors under foreign influence. At this point, to quote Wab Kinew, it’s time to declare them agents of the “Epstein Class” and beat them senseless.
If they are willing to consort with pederasts and terrorists, then it’s time to make a war of this and crush them wholesale brutality.
Yes, but will the separatist referendum question pass the Clarity Act? I very much doubt it, since the question put to Albertans will be phrased to solicit a response favourable to separation.
LAS: I don’t mean to sound cranky or alarmist, but the separatist/Free Alberta Strategy plan from the get-go has been to create circumstances in which the bad actors in our provincial government, of which there are many, can unilaterally declare independence and call for the assistance of the U.S. Marines, if Donald Trump is still alive and the Marines not occupied elsewhere, which they believe they have been promised. Obviously, there is no way they can win an honest referendum or, quite possibly, even collect sufficient real Albertans’ names to get it on the ballot. The goal is not to give us a choice. Currency controls will follow immediately, IMO. DJC
Will be interesting to see how all them federal troops stationed in alberta play out. Oh and the ones in the arctic, and the ones in BC and Saskatchewan. 24 forces bases total, not including the federal police, which are a military cavalry force, not a traditional policing force.
After which you have the insurgent force, including all treaty peoples who according to them are united like no other point in history. Oil and Gas production in alberta will be SHUT DOWN. There are hundreds of thousands of unmanned and I watched pipelines, gas facilities, wellheads etc all over this province (ask the RCMP unit that was trying to frame Weibo) And you better believe treaty folks know where the choke points are.
As far as currency controls, that’s why we have federal banks, anyone foolish enough to still have an ATB account at that time will be digging their own grave, I am sure you’re right about that.
Y’all Qaeda isn’t up to the challenge. Neither are the Americans, and I don’t think they’re all that interested in trying right now, they’re a bit busy with Russia China and Iran.
No, they try to force the hand of the feds and bring in the Yankees ( which they think will work, because they’re incredibly stupid and arrogant) they’re going to end up either dead or in jail. We learned this stuff from the British, we are not such wilting violets.
Btw, the AVERAGE Canadian forces member has a skill level that is closer to a tier two operator than a standard marine, the Americans are fat, complacent, and out of shape. How they been doing this month?
Bird: Interesting military factoid: Cavalry regiments, both British and American, wore yellow stripes on their trousers, which is why the RCMP do too. I am less confident that federally regulated bank wouldn’t shrug and set up a Republic of Alberta subsidiary as fast as possible and transfer all Albertans’ savings to it with indecent haste, whether they liked it or not. Currency controls will surely follow. Our real estate holdings would be quickly worthless too. Don’t disparage the Marines too much. They’re a well trained and disciplined military force. Some units of the volunteer army are too, but some are of lower quality. As a wise military man told me years ago that no Western country’s soldiers have as much inclined toward battlefield heroism since the invention of tracer ammunition. DJC
Not a lot of marine environments for the marines to marine in either. They’re not a ground force. The Americans don’t have a paddle for this, operation. Trump has even said he’s not interested in military operations in Canada. It would be an existential war for both parties and it’s impossible, our ruling classes are joined at the hip, ask the bronfmans
@DJC
The vets in the USA are a nickle’s worth away from an uprising at this point. An astonishing amount of them were on the last Samud Flotilla and the number is growing for the amount on the next one.
Kegsbreath removed all the competent leaders in the armed forces and I’d be willing to bet more than a few of them are hitting the end of their tether. They swore an oath to their constitution, not the administration. And they are voicing this publicly–loudly and often.
Don’t be surprised if half the guys on our side…wind up being their guys.
Another military officer (my son in law, a major, based in Alberta) also told me something interesting. The reason the Americans train so much with the CAF is because our training is far superior. Canadian infantry can do every job in a squad. American can not. Our downfall is lack of kit.
I believe it. On both counts. DJC
Smith was on The Current today posing as pro-Canada, but telling the same old lies. I think she will pretend she was always on the winning side, whichever one it is.
She has been so destructive, I want to see her go to jail.
Val: I listened to that interview. I am always astounded at what a talented gaslighter Ms. Smith is. Stating things confidently as fact that are entirely made up or, at best, spun like a top. I was interested that she has sneeringly relocated Manitoba from the Prairies to “The East.” DJC
“sneeringly relocated Manitoba from the Prairies to ‘The East.'” Kind of like what the CFL did for a time when they had no team in Ottawa and needed four teams in the Eastern Conference …
I bet Wab loved that.
I’d pay money to put him on a stage with Dixie Dani and watch him use her for verbal target practise while she waffles around trying to complete a sentence.
A prediction:
Justice Leonard will eventually make a 3 part ruling.
1) the section of Citizen Initiative Act that requires petitions to comply with the Constitution, including protections for treaty rights, be restored.
Justice Feasby’s ruling will be enforced, killing the petition.
2) she will also bluntly state Smith cannot use the notwithstanding clause to protect the petition.
3) the provincial government must consult with First Nations before posing a separation question. This doesn’t mean First Nations have an automatic veto, but instead that no government can act unilaterally. This part of the ruling will go to the Supreme Court and become law of the land
I’m sure Mr. Climenhaga will have something soon on the recent court ruling for a 1 month stay preventing Elections Alberta from certifying any signature sheets, but will allow for petition gathering to continue.
Some of the AB pro-separatists will view this as a provocation or escalation and motivate them even further to make the referendum happen either way.
I can respect the First Nation Chiefs who want to protect their Treaty Rights, but they do not speak for all First Nation members. Especially with those who are disenchanted or distrusting of their own band councils.
It’s not a good idea to brush off and deprive Albertans who legitimately feel frustrated with the current and past federal governments. Otherwise escalations will continue to a point of no return.
So let the referendum happen so we can actually see the true voting results.