Alberta separatists have submitted enough signatures to take the question to a provincial referendum already scheduled for October. But many obstacles still remain for the movement that wants to see the Western province secede from the rest of Canada.
Who leads Stay Free Alberta?
The separatist group Stay Free Alberta, led by small business owner Mitch Sylvestre, submitted around 301,000 signatures on May 4 to Elections Alberta, well above the 178,000 it needed. The signatures still need to be verified, but that is on hold while a judge considers a challenge from Alberta First Nations who say separation violates their treaty rights.
Mitch Sylvestre, leader of the Alberta separatist movement, shows off petitions collected at a rally outside the offices of Elections Alberta before turning in the petitions to trigger a referendum on separating from the rest of Canada in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada May 4, 2026. REUTERS/Todd Korol
(REUTERS / REUTERS)
Sylvestre told Yahoo Canada that his group wants Alberta to separate from the rest of Canada because they have doubts the federal government will ever be Conservative again and represent their political viewpoints. They are tired of a Liberal government that has been in power since 2015 and Sylvestre says doesn’t represent who they are. He says Liberals are trying to sabotage Alberta’s oil and gas industry, impacting its economy and Albertans’ ability to work. He also alleges that federal money is not well accounted for by the Liberal government, and is calling for a federal audit.
“There’s many, many (reasons) why Alberta would be better off on their own,” Sylvestre said. “There’s a point where you can’t subsidize the rest of the country.”
Alberta separatism movement splintered into factions
While his group’s motives are similar to other separatists in the province, University of Alberta political science professor Jared Wesley told Yahoo Canada that Alberta’s separatist movement is currently splintered into different factions that don’t trust each other. Some separatists are anti-globalist and think Canada represents all that is wrong with the world, Wesley said, while others are strategic separatists who are using the threat of separation to carve out better terms for the province with the federal government.
But separation is still a long way from becoming reality.
Once you call a referendum, you lose control over the political agenda and you lose control over the outcome.
Wesley said secession is currently polling around 15-25 per cent in Alberta, and there is no indication it is more popular now, even though it has received more media attention recently. Polls in April and May found two-thirds of respondents would vote against separation. That outlook could change, he warned, similar to how Brexit was seen as a long shot before Brits voted for it.
“Once you call a referendum, you lose control over the political agenda and you lose control over the outcome,” Wesley said.
Why Alberta separatism is different than Quebec’s
The movement has been aided by the province, which lowered the number of signatures needed to add the question to a referendum and has given a platform for separatists, Wesley said. He added that separatists’ strategy for seceding now is different than in the past. Rather than following a “Quebec playbook” of starting a new political party, they are taking more of a MAGA, Trumpian approach by attempting to infiltrate mainstream political parties.
There are other differences between the separatist movement in Quebec, according to McMaster University assistant political science professor Adrienne Davidson. Albertans lack an identity as a distinct people, she said, or a “nation within a nation,” which is unique to Quebec. Alberta doesn’t have its own language or stories about its nationhood, for example.
“The Quebec separatist movement is linked to a very distinct national identity,” Davidson said. “That doesn’t exist, really, in the Alberta context.”
The Quebec separatist movement is linked to a very distinct national identity. That doesn’t exist, really, in the Alberta context.
Alberta could follow in Quebec’s footsteps to draw out concessions for itself within the federation, which Davidson said is completely within their purview to pursue.
More like MAGA than Quebec
The movement share traits with the MAGA movement rather than Quebec, such as conspiratorial thinking, Wesley said. That includes an embedded mistrust of “some corrupt cabal of elites that are gaming the system.”
Such thinking has made the separatist movement vulnerable to misinformation and foreign actors such as Russia, China and the U.S., according to Wesley. A recent report from the organization DisInfoWatch said “foreign adversaries are exploiting the Alberta separatist debate to erode social cohesion.”
“These [foreign] actors are far better resourced and in many ways far more efficient at spreading those [divisive] messages than the homegrown separatist movement themselves,” Wesley said. “The worrying thing to me is that even if the separatist movement here in Alberta wanted to control messaging, they can’t.”