The separatists have good reason to think the Trump administration could be an ally. In January, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Alberta a “natural partner for the U.S.” while referencing the province’s “great resources.”
“People are talking,” Bessent told conservative podcaster Jack Posobiec, nodding to the separatist movement. “People want sovereignty. They want what the U.S. has got.”
Rath says he has requested introductions to the U.S. Treasury Department and major financial institutions like JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs to build a day one feasibility plan for Albertan independence, though it’s unclear if he has had any such conversations.
The Alberta Prosperity Project, however, has taken three trips to Washington, D.C., and Rath insists the group has met with “very senior level” officials, who he says have taken their information directly to the White House.
A State Department spokesperson said the department “regularly meets with a wide range of representatives. We do not anticipate any future meetings, and all department engagements are at our sole discretion.”
“As Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has said, the vote is a decision for the people of Alberta,” the spokesperson added.
Bessent made his comments amid heightened U.S.-Canada tensions; days earlier Carney had argued at Davos that middle powers needed to form new coalitions after the Trump-fueled “rupture” in the global order.
That episode inflamed the pro-America separatists, as did Carney’s subsequent use of the phrase “new world order” during a January trip to China to sign new energy and trade agreements. That phrase is catnip to those who fear the creation of a global government, and more conspiracy theories quickly seeped into Alberta’s separatist movement through Facebook groups and YouTube videos claiming Carney is steering the country toward communism and against the U.S.
But it’s also true that Alberta’s grievances with Ottawa began long before Carney jostled with Trump. They have been passed down for generations, rooted in a belief that the federal government has ignored, exploited or misunderstood the province since its founding.
Today, that resentment has become deeply personal. Separatists point to what they see as federal overreach and clean energy policies that have made life more expensive and undermined their economy.
Federalists, meanwhile, are alarmed that neighbors, friends, family, and sometimes even spouses, are “willing to betray their country,” in Kenney’s words.
Former Conservative MP Damien Kurek cautions against dismissing separatists as traitors. Instead, he argues, politicians should ask why so many Albertans feel abandoned by the federation.
For Kurek, one of the defining moments of Albertan anger came in 2021, when U.S. President Joe Biden cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office by revoking its cross-border permit.
The ripple effects spread throughout Kurek’s riding. He says mechanics had fewer oilfield trucks to repair and restaurants served fewer meals, while roadside motels sat empty and young families put off buying homes.
But what many Albertans remember most isn’t Biden’s decision. It’s the belief that Ottawa, under then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, failed to fight it.
“I was very frustrated with the Liberals, including many Liberals that told me that I just needed to accept it, that are still on the Liberal Cabinet benches today,” says Kurek, whose riding included Hardisty, Canada’s largest oil pipeline hub.
That moment reinforced a deeper belief among many of his constituents, he says: If our national leader won’t stand up for us when we need him most, the very “promise of Canada” was in question.
Many in rural Alberta feel like their communities live or die by decisions made thousands of miles away in Ottawa. But this was just another chapter in a much longer story.
An Alberta separatism sign is shown on a farm in Turner Valley, Alberta. The discovery of oil and gas in the region in 1914 eventually led to the development of Western Canada’s first commercial oilfield. Albertans have long accused Ottawa of stifling its oil and gas industry through regulations.
Kenney, the former Alberta premier, traces Western alienation back to the province’s creation in 1905. He says Ottawa initially treated Alberta more like a colony than an equal partner, including delaying provincial control over its natural resources.
The modern separatist movement then took shape in the 1980s after former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau introduced the National Energy Program, which raised taxes on oil companies and oil exports and shifted more of the industry’s profits from Alberta to Ottawa. The unpopular program was dismantled five years later, but Albertans didn’t forget.
When Trudeau’s son, Justin, became prime minister in 2015, his government introduced environmental policies that Alberta’s oil industry argued made it more difficult and expensive to build pipelines, expand production and attract investment.
Albertans’ sense of alienation also extends beyond energy policy. Many feel their votes carry less weight than those cast in vote-rich Ontario and Quebec, since that’s where federal elections are often decided. After repeatedly electing Conservative MPs only to see Liberal governments take power in Ottawa, some have concluded federal elections have little effect on Alberta’s fortunes.
