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Alberta sovereigntists and supporters gather outside the Alberta Legislature on May 3, 2025.
What We’re Watching: Separatists go bust, Canada goes social, US readies tax retaliation
Alberta separatists underwhelm in local election
Alberta’s separatist movement came up short in a bellwether by-election in rural Calgary on Monday, winning a disappointing 19% of the vote in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills. Cameron Davies, leader of the separatist Alberta Republican Party, came in third, behind the governing United Conservative Party and the left-leaning New Democratic Party. Although a referendum on separatism is still in the cards, the weak showing in what was thought to be prime separatist territory suggests the movement may have little steam after all.
Canada to get its own private social network
A handful of nationalistic Canadian tech leaders provoked by Donald Trump’s threats are launching a Canadian social media platform operated independently of the American cloud. Known as Gander, it will run on Canadian servers, in line with Canadian privacy and moderation rules — meaning tighter policing of posts considered hate speech. In a unique feature, users will have the option of posting on a globally visible network or a Canada-only one. Can an upstart like this really challenge US and Chinese social media giants? We’re keen to have a … Gander.
Republicans could strip tax retaliation clause from “Big Beautiful Bill”
The Trump administration’s massive budget bill currently gives the White House the power to retaliate against other countries that impose taxes the US considers unfair. Key targets are minimum corporate tax rates and digital services taxes (like Canada’s). Top Republican officials say they will remove the clause if the EU and other countries drop or renegotiate the offending taxes. But that would need to happen by this weekend, since Donald Trump wants to sign the bill into law ahead of next week’s July Fourth holiday.
Calls for Albertan separatism are getting louder: Should Carney be worried?
King Charles III’s speech on Tuesday from the throne in Ottawa was like a family reunion for Canadian politicians.
Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was there, joking around with his old opponent Justin Trudeau, who, playing to type, wore an inappropriate pair of running shoes. Justin’s mother, Margaret Trudeau, who has known the king for 50 years, embraced the monarch.
But one important person wasn’t there: Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta. Smith, who made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago in January and skipped the last gathering of Canadian premiers in Ottawa, has shown mixed feelings about the Canadian federation.
As the king’s plane was en route back to London, Smith called on Carney to respond to a series of demands meant to boost Alberta’s energy industry: build a new oil pipeline, loosen emissions and regulatory rules, scrap a tanker ban, and drop net-zero electricity requirements.
“Albertans need to see meaningful action within weeks — not months,” she threatened.
The unstated threat is Smith’s plan for a referendum that could theoretically allow Alberta to separate, after which it could, in theory, join the United States.
Smith, whose political ideology veers toward libertarianism, warned during the recent election that if easterners replaced Trudeau with Carney, it could produce an “unprecedented national unity crisis.” The day after Carney won, she presented a bill that will make it possible for Alberta to hold an independence referendum, likely next year.
The best local polling suggests that if a referendum were held today, it would fail, with only 28% of Albertans saying they’d vote to separate, compared to 67% who’d want to stay.
Numbers often change during a campaign, though, and uncertainty about the province’s future is already damaging the investment climate, so Carney faces pressure to bring Smith onside. Even his ally, Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford, says it’s time to show her some love.
Carney will have an opportunity to do just that when he flies to neighboring Saskatchewan to meet with Smith and the other premiers on Monday.
Carney pledged, via the king’s speech, to speed regulatory approvals so Canada can become the “world’s leading energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy.” And executives in the oil patch were cheered by a boosterish speech from his natural resources minister, Tim Hodgson. They hope that Carney and Hodgson will help them find ways to get their petroleum to foreign markets, rather than selling it at a discount to the United States.
But it is unlikely that he can deliver on Smith’s demands. British Columbians and Quebecers are both apt to resist new pipelines across their provinces, and if he removes the emissions cap, Carney risks losing support among voters worried about climate change.
Even if he does make some concessions to Alberta, chances are he won’t take the steam out of the separatist movement entirely. Smith needs to keep the separatists in her corner, rather than risk losing those voters to the province’s upstart Republican Party. That means a referendum is all but certain to go ahead.
Like former UK Prime Minister David Cameron before the Brexit referendum, Smith is trying to buy herself some time. And even Albertans who don’t want to secede still hope the threat will improve her negotiating position with Carney.
The wild card in the mix is Donald Trump, who is widely admired among the Albertan separatists and who regularly says Canada should agree to be annexed.
Could Alberta’s secessionist movement provide an opening for Trump to stir up trouble? He must know the province sits atop the world’s fourth-largest oil reserve. Does Trump look at Alberta the way Vladimir Putin once looked at the Donbas?
The stakes are high and the pressure is on Carney. He has been a successful banker, business executive, and campaigner. After his trip to Saskatchewan, Canadians might get a sense of whether he can master the difficult regional-power politics necessary to be a successful prime minister.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announces proposed changes to several pieces of democratic process legislation, in Edmonton on Tuesday, April 29, 2025.
Smith makes Alberta referendum easier
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith tabled a bill on Tuesday that will make it easier for voters in her province to force a referendum to secede from Canada. Though she has not endorsed separation, critics accuse her of exploiting the sentiment to animate her base and distract from other issues. The bill could theoretically clear the way for the province to become the 51st state.
The bill lowers the threshold for a citizen-initiated petition from about 600,000 signatures to about 170,000, which separatists hope would allow the vote to happen.
During the election, Smith warned that a reelected Liberal government would increase secessionist sentiments in both Alberta and Saskatchewan, staunchly conservative provinces that profit from the oil and gas industry. Many Prairie voters blame the federal government for legislation that made it harder to develop pipelines and an emissions cap on the money-spinning oil sands.
Former Reform Party Leader Preston Manning, a revered elder statesman, made a splash during the election when he published an op-ed predicting that another Liberal government could lead to Western separatism: “Voters, particularly in central and Atlantic Canada, need to recognize that a vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession – a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it.”
It’s unlikely to pass. A poll this month showed that 30% of Albertans and 33% of Saskatchewanians would vote to separate if the Liberals were reelected, but other polls have shown lower levels of support, concentrated in rural areas.
Canada’s Clarity Act theoretically allows for a province to separate after a referendum but only if it achieves a clear majority on a clear question, which would lead to a constitutional process at the federal level — an uncertain process.
Alberta’s Indigenous peoples, who have treaties that pre-date the creation of the province, are generally said to oppose the idea.
Premier Danielle Smith tours Jasper, Alberta, Canada, in July.
Chemtrail conspiracy takes flight over Alberta
British journalist Christopher Hitchens once described conspiracy theories as “the exhaust fumes of democracy.” But it is doubtful he was referring to so-called “chemtrails.” A slightly unhinged school of thought now has it that vapor trails in the sky are sprayed deliberately to poison or control the people below.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was asked about chemtrails at a town hall in Edmonton last weekend and, after being heckled for saying no one is allowed to spray anything over the province, conceded she’d been told the source might be the US Department of Defense, according to Global News.
A reporter who contacted the Pentagon was told they didn’t know what Smith was talking about and referred him to the North American Aerospace Defence Command, which said it is not conducting any flights that involve spraying chemicals.
One health expert dismissed the idea as a baseless, “ridiculous” conspiracy theory, while federal Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault said Smith’s comment was “simply bonkers.”
The premier later clarified that there is no evidence of chemtrails and she was simply sharing what she’d been told.
But, then again, she would say that …
FILE PHOTO: France, Paris, 03-12-2022. March against the Uighur genocide
Hard Numbers: Slave labor gets free pass, China probes fried chicken blast, Fresh beef over origins of meat, Windfarms vs. farmlands, Record numbers at US-Canada border
0: Is Canada complying with its obligation, under the revamped NAFTA accords, to stop importing goods that are made with forced labor? A Politico report earlier this week suggested Canadian border services officials were starting to detain shipments from Western China, where Beijing is accused of using slave labor among the Uighur population. But the Globe and Mail reports that zero imports have so far been rejected. Of particular concern are exports of relatively inexpensive Chinese solar panels, which have helped businesses and homes wean themselves off fossil fuels without breaking the bank.
7: Speaking of China, authorities are probing the cause of a massive explosion on Thursday at a fried chicken restaurant near Beijing that left at least 7 people dead and 27 injured. The incident comes amid a big safety crackdown on restaurants following a fatal gas explosion at a barbecue restaurant last year. Crispy fact: Fried chicken is wildly popular in China – KFC was the first US fast food chain to open in China when the country opened up in 1978.
795,000: The US imports an average of about 795,000 head of cattle from Canada every year, but there’s a fresh beef this week over new meat labeling requirements in the US. The Biden administration on Monday issued new rules that permit sellers to label their products as “made in the USA” only when the animals were born, raised, slaughtered, and packaged within the 50 states. The Canadian meat industry says the new rules will depress Canadian exports and raise prices for American meat-lovers.
1: A study in Alberta has determined that even if renewable energy sources grew rapidly, they would still take up less than 1% of the sprawling province’s land two decades from now. The findings come amid a frothy local debate about the merits of giving precious farmland to cows, crops, or wind farms. The government recently imposed a moratorium on the use of any prime land for renewables until a consensus is reached.
7,000: Border patrol in the Swanton Sector, which touches the US states of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, arrested some 7,000 migrants trying to cross illegally into the United States last year, more than in the past 12 years combined. With so much attention on the US southern border, migrants (and human traffickers) are setting their sights up north. To put those 7,000 in perspective, in December alone, US border agents encountered 250,000 undocumented migrants entering from Mexico.Windmills generate electricity in the windy rolling foothills of the Rocky Mountains near the town of Pincher Creek, Alberta, September 27, 2010.
Hard Numbers: Alberta renewables ban, ‘Dirty Harry’ smuggler arrested, Three Amigos at risk, China keeps digging into Canadian mines
0: New regulations from the Alberta government will permit zero new renewable energy projects to be built on private property that has high value for irrigation, specialty crops, or other farming importance, as well as areas where projects would interfere with “pristine viewscapes.” Alberta, which leads Canada in renewables development, has drawn nearly $5 billion into the sector in recent years, stoking concerns about the balance of farmland vs. alternative energy.
25,000: A man has been arrested in Chicago and charged with human trafficking in connection with the death of an Indian family of four that froze to death while trying to cross illegally from Canada into the US in 2022. The 28-year old man, nicknamed “Dirty Harry,” is accused of paying $25,000 to the driver who smuggled the family. With so much attention on the migration situation at the US southern border, the number of migrants seeking to enter the US from Canada has soared in recent years.
2: The so-called “Three Amigos Summit” could wind up with only two amigos this year, after Mexican President Andrés Manual Lopez Obrador threatened to ditch the North American Leaders meeting. AMLO, as the left-populist leader is known, said that he wouldn’t show up unless his country got “respectful treatment.” The remark comes as AMLO’s administration blasts possible new US and Canadian tariffs on Mexican steel, but it probably doesn’t help that last week it emerged that the US had spent “years” investigating ties between AMLO and drug cartels.
2.2 billion: Tighter restrictions on Chinese investment in Canada’s critical minerals industry appear not to have had much deterrent effect, according to a new study which shows that Chinese firms plowed at least C$2.2 billion into the sector last year. That came even after Ottawa forced three Chinese companies to sell their stakes in Canadian businesses in 2022. Copper miners were a particular focus, according to the report.
FILE PHOTO: Satellite image shows wildfires in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, September 24, 2023.
Alberta sounds alarm on 2024 wildfire season
It’s already begun … The Alberta government on Tuesday declared an early start to the 2024 wildfire season as firefighters there prepare for a hot, dry year ahead. Across Canada, authorities are bracing for a difficult year of fires after a record-setting year in 2023, which sent smoke plumes to population centers across the continent.
A warming climate is making forests drier and more susceptible to big, dangerous fires. More than 100 “zombie fires” (dormant in winter) are still smoldering in Western Canada, where they pose a threat when the weather warms up again.
“It's not something I've seen in any of the data sets,” Wilfrid Laurier University biology professor Jennifer Baltzer told CBC. “What we don't know is how many of these will actually translate to reignition in the spring.”
The continental United States was largely spared last year, and so far the projections look good for 2024 but worrying for the long term.A homeless man's tent is seen in an alley in downtown Toronto, Ontario.
HARD NUMBERS: Ontario’s ex-cons struggle to find homes, First Nations challenge carbon tax, “Super pigs” eye the border, Alberta cashes in on TV
17.3: The percentage of prisoners released from Ontario jails who have nowhere to live has nearly doubled over the past five years, reaching 17.3% in 2021-2022, the most recent annual data show. Experts blame a triple crisis of housing affordability, mental health, and addiction, and warn that there is a high correlation between homelessness and recidivism.
133: A group representing 133 indigenous groups in Ontario filed a lawsuit today challenging the federal government’s carbon tax, which they say disproportionately burdens their communities. The tax, a cornerstone of Justin Trudeau’s climate agenda, has seen growing local pushback, especially after the PM excluded home heating oil from the tax in October in a move viewed as a sop to his constituents in Atlantic Canada, where the fuel is most common.
62,000: As if there weren’t enough to worry about in the world, the US is now bracing for an invasion of “super pigs” from Canada. More than 62,000 of the voracious, destructive, and nearly unkillable creatures have already been spotted roaming the US-Canada borderlands. They are the crossbred descendants of wild boars that Canadian farmers released into the wild after the boar meat market crashed in the early 2000s. Experts say the pigs are an “ecological train wreck.” We can’t read this story without hearing “Super Pig” to the tune of Rick James’ “Superfreak” — and now … neither can you.
141 million: And the last (of us) shall be first … The post-apocalyptic HBO show “The Last of Us” generated $141 million for the province of Alberta, where it was shot in 2021-2022. That makes it the most lucrative TV show ever shot in Canada. Next season, the drama moves to British Columbia.