Over a Century of Alienation<\/p>\n
Many Albertans say the province has been treated badly since the day it joined the Canadian confederation in 1905.<\/p>\n
Political cartoons at the time portrayed eastern Canada \u2014 practically a continent away from Alberta \u2014 milking the province for its resources. (In one<\/a>, from 1915, a cow is depicted straddling the length of Canada being fed by farmers in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and milked by men in suits and top hats in eastern Canada.)<\/p>\n That sense of being exploited has animated a separatist fervor ever since, underpinned by a belief that the ranchers, farmers and oilmen who settled this part of Canada were made of different stuff.<\/p>\n But even as Alberta and the federal government clashed during the last century, separatism remained a minority movement.<\/p>\n In recent years, no more than 20 percent of Albertans have supported separatism, polls showed, and they were often dismissed as rural cranks or pro-United States agitators, secretly angling for Alberta to become a U.S. state.<\/p>\n \u201cThis idea is not new,\u201d said Corey Hogan, a Liberal member of Parliament for Alberta\u2019s largest city, Calgary, who has began an impassioned campaign for Alberta to stay in Canada. \u201cWhat\u2019s new is that people are talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n The views of Mr. Lovelace, the pulp mill tradesman, offer a window into how a once-fringe movement is attracting a broader segment of Albertan society by harnessing people\u2019s grievances.<\/p>\n Mr. Lovelace said he wanted Albertans, who are, in general, wealthier than other Canadians, to regain control of how their taxes are spent, instead of letting them be managed by Ottawa. Alberta has a population of roughly five million \u2014 about 12 percent of Canada\u2019s 41.5 million \u2014 and produces 15 percent of the country\u2019s gross economic output.<\/p>\n Trevor Tombe, an economics professor at the University of Calgary, said Albertans were not being taxed more than other provinces, but, because the province is wealthier and younger, it contributes more to the federal budget than it receives \u2014 just as British Columbia and Ontario do.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a consequence of good things, it\u2019s not a consequence of Alberta being targeted,\u201d Mr. Tombe said. \u201cIt\u2019s not as though there\u2019s a higher income tax rate in Alberta than anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Lovelace also expressed anger toward Mr. Carney\u2019s predecessor, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, arguing that his climate-focused policies stifled Alberta\u2019s ability to grow its oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n Mr. Hogan, the lawmaker, said the federal government needed to understand and address the resentment leading some Albertans to flirt with the idea of secession.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about a feeling that we don\u2019t count,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s at best indifference and often hostility from the East.\u201d<\/p>\n Come for the Secession, Stay for the Conspiracy<\/p>\n In a glum hotel conference room in Slave Lake, 100 or so people listened to a presentation in favor of Albertan independence by Mitch Sylvestre, one of the movement\u2019s most prominent leaders.<\/p>\n Most had already signed the petition to hold a separation referendum and were there to hear their views confirmed in the company of like-minded people.<\/p>\n Mr. Sylvestre, a tall man with a strong jawline and alert eyes, pulled up a PowerPoint presentation. He had done this 119 times before, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAlberta is a colony of eastern Canada, and it will be very clear when I\u2019m done,\u201d he went on. \u201cWe have to be na\u00efve to think that they do not covet what we have. Every war in history has been started by your neighbor wanting what you have.\u201d<\/p>\n Thunderous applause rose from the crowd.<\/p>\n About an hour into the presentation, things took a turn.<\/p>\n Slides showing how Albertans were being \u201ctaxed to death\u201d gave way to conspiracy theories popular in the right-wing corners of the internet.<\/p>\n Mr. Sylvestre, in no particular order, asserted that Mr. Carney wanted to install a \u201ctechnocratic dictatorship,\u201d that the Canadian federal government was a communist Trojan Horse, and that there were Chinese soldiers stationed in Canada, after noting he had once seen six fit Asian men at a supermarket.<\/p>\n He capped it off with a jab at Mr. Trudeau\u2019s partner, the pop-star Katy Perry: \u201cShe kissed a girl and she liked it,\u201d he snickered, referencing one of the singer\u2019s hit songs.<\/p>\n The crowd was rapt, but in the end, had a more practical question.<\/p>\n What would the currency be when Alberta splits?<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. dollar,\u201d Mr. Sylvestre said confidently.<\/p>\n Friends Like These<\/p>\n The Trump administration has denied making any material promises to Albertan separatists.<\/p>\n But White House and State Department officials confirmed that State Department officials met with separatist movement activists in Washington three times last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe department regularly meets with civil society types. As is typical in routine meetings such as these, no commitments were made,\u201d the State Department said in a statement.<\/p>\n The activists said they had been sworn to secrecy about whom they had met with, but they described the meetings.<\/p>\n Jeffrey Rath, an Alberta lawyer and prominent independence leader who participated in all three meetings, said one State Department official was so senior he went to see Mr. Trump in the Oval Office after wrapping up. \u201cWe\u2019re not meeting juniors in the basement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Rath and other attendees said they were told to give up on any suggestions that Alberta could join the United States (only a fragment of Albertan separatists like the idea).<\/p>\n The separatist vision is for Alberta and the United States to be closely aligned, he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll have a common market-type arrangement economically, with zero tariffs on both sides of the border, on 100 percent of all goods and services.\u201d<\/p>\n The administration appears in sync with that vision.<\/p>\n \u201cAlberta is a natural partner for the U.S.,\u201d Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, said in a January interview. \u201cThey have great resources; the Albertans are very independent people.\u201d<\/p>\n The Danielle Smith Factor<\/p>\n For most Albertans, the fact that a referendum on separation is scheduled to be held at all is a shock.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a fever dream, and suddenly, it\u2019s real,\u201d said Tye Rubisch, a friend of Mr. Lovelace\u2019s who works in the oil and gas sector in Slave Lake, but is apprehensive about separatism.<\/p>\n Mr. Rubisch is Indigenous and anxious about secession because it would throw into question binding treaties the country has signed with First Nations laying out their legal rights, including fishing, hunting and farming rights, as well as control over large parts of their ancestral lands.<\/p>\n That concern put a stop to a petition effort by the pro-independence activists last month, when a judge<\/a> sided with an Indigenous group and ruled that the referendum could violate their treaty rights. <\/p>\n Enter Danielle Smith<\/a>.<\/p>\n The premier of Alberta announced she would ram through that legal quagmire<\/a> and hold a referendum anyway, proposing a convoluted framing \u2014 a choice between staying in Canada or having another binding referendum to leave \u2014 as a compromise.<\/p>\n Ms. Smith, a nimble operator who has often changed course in response to shifting political winds, created the conditions for separatists to hold a referendum by lowering the threshold of signatures required to trigger one and extending the time a group had to meet that threshold.<\/p>\n Pro-independence leaders have described her as an ally, and her chief of staff is a prominent intellectual in the independence movement.<\/p>\n And Ms. Smith has relied on the separatists\u2019 votes. She made a comeback from an earlier political crisis to lead the United Conservative Party of Alberta with their help.<\/p>\n But Ms. Smith has started working closely with Mr. Carney on Alberta\u2019s demands, particularly federal support for a new pipeline to carry the province\u2019s oil to the west coast to be shipped to Asian markets.<\/p>\n
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