Alberta is careening toward a referendum with the possibility of a divorce between the conservative, oil-rich province and liberal Canada.

Less than 24 hours after globalist Mark Carney and his leftist government won control on April 28, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith introduced a bill lowering the threshold needed to trigger a secession referendum. The bill, which has since passed, reduces the necessary number of signatures from 20 percent of voters who participated in the last general election to 10 percent, which equals somewhere around 200,000 names. It also increases the number of days allowed for collecting signatures by an entire month, from 90 to 120 days.

Citizen groups have already collected hundreds of thousands of signatures, according to reports. The Alberta Prosperity Project, for instance, says it has gathered about 240,000. The secession referendum will take place in 2026 if enough signatures are verifiably collected.

A recent Angus Reid Institute poll found that 30 percent of voters “say they would vote to leave [the] federation, whether to form their own country or to join the United States.” 

Alberta, with its rich oil, gas, and ranching industries, and its Western heritage, has been dubbed the Texas of Canada. Many provincial citizens feel they’re being used and abused by the central government in Ottawa. The New York Times fittingly described their grievances this way:

Many Albertans have long felt disgruntled with their place in Canada’s federal system, which they see as unfairly limiting the province’s vast oil-and-gas resources while dutifully collecting taxes.

Smith echoes the concerns of her constituents, noting in a press conference that

[Albertans have been] treated like our interests don’t matter, treated like our economic imperatives aren’t important, treated like we should just shut up and just be satisfied with whatever the central government decides to do regardless of whether it’s constitutional or not. I think that’s what you were seeing in this last election.

Nevertheless, the premier has also said secession is not the primary goal, although it would be honored if that’s what Albertans want. The Times reported:

Danielle Smith, Alberta’s MAGA-style conservative leader, says she is not personally in favor of Alberta breaking away from Canada. She says she is seeking leverage to radically renegotiate Alberta’s relationship with the federal government in Ottawa, primarily to unshackle the province’s oil industry from regulations meant to address climate change. … Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promoted climate-focused policies like emission caps and strict environmental assessments over his decade in office. Critics say that these limited Alberta’s ability to fully extract and export its mineral and fossil fuel wealth.

The Liberal Party’s recent victory crushed conservative Canadians’ hopes of upgrading their nation’s leadership to one that values liberty and commonsense energy policies. With Carney as the new prime minister, though, it seems Canadians somehow managed to go from bad to worse.

Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government leveled among the most oppressive dictates in all the Western world during Covid. The government arrested pastors who defied lockdown edicts. They also set up snitch lines and encouraged neighbors to spy on and report each other, and coerced people to take the Covid “vaccine.” Among the many Canadians forced to take the jab were Canadian truckers who traveled to the United States. Truckers who refused had to quarantine for two weeks. That significantly affected their ability to earn a living and triggered the truckers’ protests that made international headlines. The way the government dealt with those protests, seizing bank accounts of those involved and its supporters, was textbook tyranny.

Trudeau had become very unpopular, and conservative Canadians hoped they could exploit that sentiment to bring about more sensical leadership. But, somewhat surprisingly, Canadians voted for more of the same. Reports suggest that U.S. President Donald Trump’s consistent talk of annexing his neighbor to the north and his tariff threats soured many Canadian voters on their conservative leadership options.

In Carney, Canadians now have a prime minister with impressive globalist credentials. He has an economics degree from Harvard; is a former central banker (serving as governor of the Bank of Canada and governor of the Bank of England); is a former World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (along with his predecessor Justin Trudeau); and has ties to the Bilderberg group, Chatham House, and the United Nations, where he was appointed as special envoy for climate action and finance.