Separatism By Any Other Name...

Danielle Smith's address to Albertans is as much about the subtext as it is what she said out loud

There was a lot of speculation that there would be an early election in 2026...

And tonight we found out that Albertans are indeed going to the polls, but it almost certainly won’t be to decide on whether or not to change government...

It appears that instead of an election campaign, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has decided that she will instead campaign on the taxpayers dime via some deeply contentious issues.

During tonight’s address to the province, Smith opened by laying the groundwork to set up a series of high stakes referendum questions.

Smith started the speech by singing the praises of Alberta’s economy but quickly pivoted to the financial realities the province faces.

Her framing of that reality is what was particularly revealing.

While Smith acknowledged that the decrease in oil prices has eliminated an $11.6 billion surplus and created an undisclosed deficit that she only described as “large” (we’ll have to wait for budget day to find out just how large), she quickly resorted to her economic training and framed the provinces finances as a supply issue.

It was the demand that she quickly blamed as the source of Alberta’s current financial situation.

And according to her, that demand is the immigrants that came to the province after Stephen Harper was Prime Minister.

Despite her claims not long ago that she wanted to double the population of Alberta to 10 million people by 2050, and when challenged on that she was clear that she meant not just from Canada, but international immigrants as well, Smith is now taking the oppposite position.

Tonight she claimed that the average of 200,000 people a year who made Alberta their home in the last five years of Justin Trudeau’s time in office are responsible for overwhelming healthcare, education and social services.

It’s worth noting that for Smith to have achieved her previous goal of 5 million new Albertans by 2050, that would have required an influx of 200,000 new Albertans per year every year in that time period.

But incongruent thinking is a feature of Smith’s for her base, not a bug, so that detail will likely be overlooked as she’s adopted the rhetoric that they prefer now.

From there, Smith quickly pivoted to how she intendeds to address the “large” budget shortfall, and it seems that for a premier who has defined her tenure by removing guardrails, she’s not about to let a good crisis go to waste.

Smith’s plan is to further eliminate guardrails, or as she refers to it, bureaucracy, “improving efficiencies”, which has thus far been largely through the profitization and privatization of public services and implement more income testing for social programs, the vague language of which certainly gives the elderly and disabled in the province cause for concern.

Which brings us to the referendum.

Many pundits and observers have clearly stated that Smith wants, and maybe even needs a campaign. She’s at her best when she’s meeting with people directly, not in the legislature.

A polarizing referendum gives her the opportunity to control with certainty what she wouldn’t be able to control in an early election, the election question.

And with a referendum, she gets complete control over what the questions are, how they are framed, where she gets to place herself, and perhaps most importantly, where she gets to place her opponents.

The referendum she announced tonight has two major themes.

The first is immigration.

Even Smith acknowledged that because she is attempting to alter the social fabric of the province so drastically, she needs a mandate to do so.

How does she intend to alter it?

On October 19, 2026, Smith will be asking Albertans for a mandate to...

• Giving Alberta greater control over immigration in order to decrease it and prioritizing Albertan jobs to Albertans first.

• Introducing a law to limit access to services to only Canadian citizens, permanent residents or people that Alberta approves of.

• Introducing a low requiring 12 months of residency in Alberta before accessing Alberta social programs.

• Charging fees for non-citizens or non-permanent residents to access healthcare and education.

• Requiring proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate, or citizenship card to vote in provincial elections.

So while many Americans are preparing for midterms that many expect will be the first major repudiation of MAGA, Danielle SMith is embracing some of their core principles.

But that’s not all...

Smith is also bringing forward 4 questions on constitutional changes.

Despite the requirements for constitutional change being outside of the reach of a single province, Smith will be asking Albertans if they...

• Believe that provincial governments should appoint all judges at all levels.

• Believe that the senate should be abolished.

• Believe that provinces should be allowed to opt out of federal programs “intruding on provincial jurisdiction such as health, education, and social services, without losing any of the associated federal funding” for use in their own provincial social programs.

• Believe that provincial laws should be given supremacy when they are in conflict with federal laws.

It is the last two that Albertans should be paying closest attention to in this bunch.

Smith has framed the relationship between the provinces and the federal government as one being locked in eternal conflict and is creating a de facto state of administrative separation instead of a literal one that separatists are advocating for across the province (albeit in smaller numbers than they would like to admit).

Again, any of these constitutional changes are outside of the reach of a single province to enact and if Alberta’s last referendum on equalization is any kind of barometer on the direct weight and consequence of what these questions can accomplish, they are likely of little concern in that context.

But that’s far from the real point, or the real risks.

Canada is under attack economically and under threat geographically from it’s former best friend. Donald Trump and his ilk have repeatedly made threats of taking over Canada and making it the 51st state.

At perhaps one of the most important times in Canada’s history for national unity to be a priority, Smith is seeking a mandate to drive a wedge directly into the heart of Confederation.

Make no mistake, with this last batch of questions, the subtext of all of these questions is, “Are you an Albertan first or a Canadian first?”

There’s no room in this referendum for those identities to be equally weighted.

And that fact alone shows a fundamental failure to meet the demands of the moment on behalf of the people she has been elected to represent.