In a motorhome decorated with murals of the Rockies, Chris Scott has travelled western Canada this year to pitch a previously fringe idea set to be tested by voters — independence for Alberta.
The former oil worker — who earned notoriety in 2021 after his arrest for protesting Covid lockdowns — has hosted more than 115 town halls across Alberta ahead of a non-binding October 19 referendum on separation.
During a long day on the road through southern Alberta’s prairies, Scott, 47, said that generations of his family had discussed what they view as the federal government’s mistreatment of western Canada, dictated by easterners in Ontario and Quebec.
But, he added, “I started thinking more closely about [independence] when I was sitting in jail for the crime of holding a protest on my own property over Covid.”
That forced him “to take a look at what Canada actually is, what our rights actually are, and who can take them away from us,” he said.
Alberta is Canada’s fourth largest province and about the size of France. Polls suggest only about a quarter of Alberta’s roughly five million people want to leave Canada.
The group includes people who oppose environmental regulation of Alberta’s oil industry, voice concerns about immigration, or accuse Ottawa of restricting free speech. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pursuit of closer ties with Europe is another often-mentioned concern.
For many, Covid lockdowns were a tipping point.
But Scott argued those issues were symptoms of a larger problem in Canadian governance.
Addressing a crowd of mostly older voters in the quiet town of Redcliff, he argued Albertans needed control over the policies shaping their lives.
“It’s called self-determination,” he told the partly-filled community hall. “That’s where freedom starts.”
Dangerous bluff?
It’s been a tumultuous year for Alberta’s independence movement, which has risen from a sideshow to national prominence, with some help from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Alberta’s right-wing Premier Danielle Smith heads a coalition that includes a substantial number of separatists, who gathered signatures to trigger a citizen-led referendum on leaving Canada.
Trump allies took interest, highlighted by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said Alberta would be a “natural partner for the U.S.”
Separatist leaders also met with Trump’s State Department to discuss support for a prospective independent Alberta.
After a judge blocked the citizen-led referendum over constitutional concerns, Smith called her own, non-binding vote, saying Albertans deserved the chance to express themselves on independence.
Her October 19 ballot question asks if voters want her government to organize a binding referendum on leaving Canada.
For Phil Triadafilopoulos, a political scientist at University of Toronto, Smith’s calculations partly echo decisions made before the 2016 Brexit vote.
Unlike Brexit, current polls do not predict a close result.
But Triadafilopoulos said that, like former U.K. prime minister David Cameron, Smith is trying to “mollify” her party’s right flank, hoping a referendum loss will put a contentious issue to rest.
“We know how that went [in Britain],” Triadafilopoulos said.
Carney, who led the Bank of England during the Brexit vote, has called Smith’s referendum question “a dangerous bluff.”
‘Like the Titanic’
Christine Nichols greeted Scott as his bus pulled into Medicine Hat, a small city south of Redcliff.
Wearing a blue tank-top with the words “Faith, Family, Freedom,” the 65-year-old spoke passionately about Alberta’s need to separate, warning about immigration, EU ties, and “people back east [who] are all in for the climate stuff.”
“They don’t want the oil coming out of the ground,” she said, declaring that Canada “is like the Titanic. It’s going down.”
But she was particularly irritated by the surge in patriotism triggered by Trump, arguing Carney had used anti-American passions to advance his agenda.
“We have a prime minister who ended up using the sentiment of a lot of people who have Trump derangement syndrome,” Nichols said.
“He’s fanned those flames, so whatever he does that’s anti-Trump is okay. And what they’re not looking at is that what he’s doing is anti-Canadian.”
Carney and Smith were in Alberta’s oil hub Fort McMurray on Thursday, announcing progress towards a new west coast pipeline, a controversial project experts say is partly aimed at easing western resentment of Ottawa.
Asked what message he had for separatist voters, Carney said the pipeline project shows “Canada is working.”
“We came together,” he said. “This opportunity is unlocked by Canada as a whole.”
