May 30, 2026
Click “Listen Now” to hear the audio version of Insights.
HERE'S MY TAKE
CTV’s headline writer picked up Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s “I do” phrasing in a story on Alberta’s separation referendum, framing the debate through the metaphor of a troubled marriage. Like all metaphors, it has limits, but it captures something important about the political and emotional dynamics of the debate, which will undoubtedly remain in the headlines between now and the October 19 vote.
Marriage counsellors often observe that early sessions are dominated by blame, and there was plenty of that on display this past week. Each side believes it’s the other side that needs fixing.
Federalists blame Smith for pandering to extreme elements of her support base, magnifying separatist grievances, and lowering the threshold for a referendum. Separatists blame her for hedging: holding a one-sided “referendum on whether to have a referendum” rather than directly asking the question. Jeffrey Rath, one of the most visible separatist voices, charges Smith with being a traitor to the separatist cause and is calling for a special meeting of her party to remove her as leader.
There will be at least another five months of blame and politicking on this issue, and I suspect the intensity will only increase as the consequences become more starkly understood. But assigning blame rarely clarifies the deeper issues. Three came to mind as I took in this week’s coverage.
1. Continued Relations Require Mutual Respect
To outsiders, Alberta’s grievances can appear puzzling. Alberta remains one of Canada’s wealthiest provinces with the highest median incomes. More people want to move to Alberta than leave it. Whatever the restraints, since 2000, oilsands revenue has multiplied several times over, hydrocarbon revenues have grown at roughly nine percent annually, and the oil and gas sector contributes about $88 billion annually, roughly one-quarter of Alberta’s GDP.
Yet resentment persists.
Part of the reason is historical memory. The National Energy Program (NEP), introduced by the Pierre Trudeau government in 1980 (and dismantled in subsequent decades), remains a defining symbol of federal overreach into provincial affairs for many. It took me moving to Alberta in 2004 and hearing Albertans still referencing family members and friends losing their homes due to the economic fallout of the NEP to realize the extent to which this wasn’t a current political or economic grievance to be solved, but something that went much deeper.
It was the preoccupation of many Albertans with Quebec that suggested to me there is something more going on here. Quebec’s constitutional grievances are organized around a symbolic grievance from the same era—the 1982 patriation of the constitution without Quebec’s agreement or signature. But when you listen to Albertans, it’s not the symbolic grievance of the 1980s but the four decades of response by the rest of Canada (RoC) that tell the story.
The perception is that Canada has bent over backwards to try to appease Quebec. The Meech Lake Accord, the Charlottetown Accord, and the 1995 referendum all saw RoC efforts to address Quebec’s concerns. They may not have succeeded—Quebec’s signature is still not on the constitution, but the perception is that the Quebec posture of grievance has brought more than its share of transfer payments, a deal regarding how Quebec hydro revenues are calculated that is much more favourable than how Alberta’s energy revenues are calculated, and a voice in the national institutions that seems greater than their proportionate share of the population.
Alberta, on the other hand, has not seen its concerns seriously addressed. It has 12 percent of Canada’s population but just 11 percent of the House of Commons seats, six out of 105 Senate seats and no constitutionally guaranteed seat on the Supreme Court, while Quebec is guaranteed three of nine Supreme Court Justices.
For some Albertans, the continuation of these issues is a sign of disrespect, regardless of how the immediate agreements between the federal and provincial governments resolve the energy and resource issues that are currently top-of-mind.
2. What Patriotism Requires
The debate raises significant questions about what constitutes a country and the nature of loyalty a citizen owes to their country.
I won’t repeat the details engaged in the September 15, 2025, edition of Insights, where I tried to sort out the important differences between a country, a state, and a nation, or the “Christian or Civic Nationalism” distinction I mused about on February 21, 2026. While neither of those columns was about Alberta, the core definitions and issues at stake are relevant here. This is particularly relevant in answering the wishful suggestions of some who believe the politics of an independent Alberta will be free from the challenges of modern identity politics. There seems to be a significant subset of Alberta separatist activists who seem to think it is inevitable that an independent Alberta government will perpetually reflect a totally different set of value considerations than does the “post-national” government of Canada (for which Justin Trudeau’s 2015 New York Times interview continues to be the reference point).
While it is true that there are more religiously committed people in Alberta than in the rest of Canada—23 percent to 16 percent—and that there is more of a small-c conservative values alignment in Alberta than elsewhere, that is hardly a basis to think that the value debates within an independent Alberta will be that different than those in the rest of the Western world. These citizens are by no means as monolithic in their political perspectives as the activists portray them to be, and furthermore, the politics of the past two decades in Alberta (in which no premier has been re-elected since Ralph Klein last won in 2004) shows a very volatile electorate in which their own parties effectively removed four premiers (Klein 2006, Stelmach 2011, Redford 2014, and Kenney 2022). Pretending that the politics of an independent Alberta will surely produce the sort of public policy envisioned by some activists seems unlikely.
This brings into view the question of how, and to what extent, patriotism should overlap with the state's current politics. To be sure, many policies of both the provincial and federal governments are at play. But our patriotism to a country is not determined by the politics of the day. “Love” for country is a different sort of love than love of spouse, love of neighbour, or love of our fellow human, regardless of where in the world they live. A citizen’s commitment to their country in a democracy isn’t qualified by “if my party is in power,” but is a commitment to responsible participation in the democratic process.
Patriotism starts with loyalty to a state in return for the state’s providing safety, security, and a framework for living together peacefully. This is true of all states, not just democratic ones. Back in the feudal days or the era of empires, loyalty was owed to a sovereign in exchange for protection. Democratic liberalism is only one kind of government (and listening to the arguments from Alberta, it may not be delivering as some had hoped). But for a country (which is more than, but always includes, a form of state government) to retain loyalty, it needs to deliver on its promise to provide protective sovereignty, justice, and fairness within. Two cautions to think about here. The separatists have a case in that the perceived failure of Canada to provide sovereignty and justice gives cause to question continued loyalty.
3. Remember the Kids
Part of the challenge in many marital disputes is that the parties think primarily of themselves and forget the consequences for others. It would seem to me that the Alberta separatists, in particular, need to remember this. While they describe an independent Alberta providing a more hopeful future for their grandkids, freed of the generations of disrespect they have endured, no one has credibly explained how a landlocked state of more than five million will thrive after independence. There are naïve suggestions to cut taxes based on transfers to other provinces, as if that more than compensates for the costs of running a truly sovereign state (with its defence, diplomatic, and state-structure requirements). There are idyllic suggestions—especially from rural Albertans, who somehow think that Alberta's voting population is entirely different from Canada's and will inevitably elect governments that reflect their values. To pretend that the political tensions within an independent Alberta over value questions would be any different from those experienced by Albertans within a united Canada (and in most of the Western world) is naïveté in the extreme. Many of the arguments, especially among social conservatives, that Alberta would end up being some sort of a “Christian country” in a way that Canada is not, do not seem a credible reading of the situation. And so the question “Will the kids be better off?” isn’t the one-sided question some make it out to be.
This, of course, also provides a challenge to the federalists. The challenges in addressing the needs of Albertans and in building national infrastructure that enables rather than frustrates the economic prosperity of all Canadians are real ones that our regulatory state has punted on for far too long. The fact that the Carney government has passed legislation to bypass these regulations for special projects just confirms that many of these regulations are problematic and that all of them should be addressed, not just a few government-chosen special ones. In a way, the path forward is for the federal government to begin to respect Alberta and its choices, rather than treating it paternalistically as the immature problem child that hasn’t yet grown up. In that vein, comments like those of B.C. Premier David Eby, complaining about Alberta getting a deal over B.C. as “rewarding bad behaviour,” reflects a continued “second-tiering” of Alberta concerns that only inflames the separatist impulse.
What’s the Path Forward?
Politics, as they say, is the art of the possible. I am not a fan of the separation debate, as once the toothpaste is out, it's impossible to put back in. Separatist ambitions are unlikely to succeed, but debating them will likely serve to weaken all of us.
Some on the federalist side are trying to develop a more constructive alternative. Leadnotleave.ca is a group of policy and academic leaders seeking to identify concrete proposals that might address some of the concerns of frustrated Albertans. Votetostay.ca is an initiative led by former Premier Jason Kenney, along with former Harper-era cabinet minister Monte Solberg, journalist Jen Gerson, and former Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews, promoting “a strong Alberta within a united Canada.” The debate is just starting.
Thankfully, I haven't needed first-hand experience with marriage counselling—happy thirty-seventh anniversary to my wife Kathy this week!—but I understand that the first session is often rocky, and that simply agreeing on an agenda can represent a solid start. Here's hoping that this week's referendum announcement marks just such a beginning. If the conversation that follows is more patient than the one that preceded it—if all sides can listen long enough to take the other's concerns seriously, resist the temptation to reduce their identity to a nationalist cause, remember that there are other kinds of love at stake, and keep the kids in mind—there is still time to reach October 19 with the country, and the relationship, intact.
WHAT I’M READING
The Pope on AI
Pope Leo XIV issued an encyclical on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Magnifica Humanitas, this week. Not only the Latin title but also the moral reflections on how a current cultural development interacts with human dignity and the common good put the document in perspective as part of the Roman Catholic Church’s social doctrine and instruction. A few years back, my colleague Brian Dijkema helpfully wrote a piece from a Protestant perspective on “How to read an Encyclical, and why,” which seems timely to re-up this week. Yuval Levin is a Jewish commentator who provided his perspective on the AI encyclical in a New Atlantis piece.
Defensive about Defence
The U.S. decision to pause the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, in which Canada and the U.S. collaborated at the highest level, is at least a significant symbol. The board last met in November 2024; however, Elbridge Colby, an undersecretary of defence in the Trump administration, announced that the U.S. was reconsidering this body because of “gaps between rhetoric and reality” in Canadian defence policy. Colby holds a long-standing strategic perspective—outlined in The Strategy of Denial and subsequent commentary—that emphasizes forcing allies to shoulder more of their own defence burdens so the United States can focus on China. Sam Duncan (partly behind paywall) points out how Prime Minister Carney’s Davos speech communicated a desire for a European-led internationalism as a countervailing balance to the United States, which predictably prompts these sorts of responses from the United States.
Ghoulish
Meeting a euthanasia doctor at a Tim Horton’s, having him give you a ride to an obscure industrial location where cadavers are prepared for transport to funeral homes, and then having him administer euthanasia, isn’t the sort of story that one expects as a headline Globe and Mail story. I suppose the fact that the Tim Hortons in question is one I have frequented and that the family was interviewed in Shedden, the rural Southwestern Ontario village of approximately 300 in which I grew up, makes it all the more stark. I take some comfort from the fact that it was deemed worthy of front-page newspaper coverage; less so from the fact that the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons did not deem this (and another case involving the same doctor in which a patient resumed breathing after the doctor had pronounced him dead and left the scene) worthy of suspension.
Is it Homelessness—or Bad Court Decisions —That are Immutable?
There has rightly been outrage at an Ontario Superior Court decision that the city of Waterloo cannot clear a homeless camp because, as Ben Woodfinden cogently summarizes in his National Post column: “Homelessness is immutable, except that it isn’t, but it should be treated as though it is.” Woodfinden summarizes the trend this decision represents in a similar vein to that with which I critiqued court decisions in this space last week. “And this is not an isolated mistake. Last summer, a different Ontario Superior Court judge struck down provincial legislation removing bike lanes from three Toronto streets, on the grounds that removing the lanes violated cyclists' Section 7 rights to life and security of the person. A de facto constitutional right to bike lanes, found by a single judge, against the explicit will of an elected legislature. The pattern across both rulings is strikingly similar. Identify a sympathetic group. Connect their circumstances to a Charter provision. Then tell elected officials what they may or may not do, or what they must affirmatively provide, regardless of what voters and their representatives have decided. Notice that the Charter’s text is endlessly elastic in the direction of the activist class’s preferred outcomes, and remarkably inflexible in any other direction.”
MEANINGFUL METRICS
This week’s report by Cardus, Home Alone: Why Most Canadians Have Fewer Children Than They Want, highlighted multiple details regarding fertility aspirations and reality that might surprise some. Canada’s historically low 1.25 fertility rate (measured as children per woman) falls well below the fertility aspirations of both men and women, with life-timing and finances looming large as factors for the lower rate. “Women and men report different obstacles to their family-formation goals. Women are more worried about the degree of support for parenting, childcare supports, and other care obligations. Men are more worried about finances, employment conditions, or the state of the economy.” It turns out that religion, ethnicity, and education are also significant factors in understanding these differences.
TAKE IT TO-GO
I’m filing from Washington D.C. this week, where it’s been a big deal for Cardus and Comment: a board of directors meeting and The Understory Festival, where 1,000 or so attendees joined our exploration of the understory of our society. I’m a polite Canadian from Ottawa, so I won’t make snide jokes at the expense of U.S. politicians. Still, will many argue that it’s most likely the civil conversations had at our festival, digging as we tried below the surface, were preferable to the hot air that is usually associated with this town. This week has been about tending the footnotes, watering the margins, and occasionally pruning the talking points. In a town (like every capital city, frankly) famous for spin, our attention was on slow growth, deep roots, and surprising connections.
I hope to be back in Canada’s capital next week. In the meantime, it’s been rewarding getting my hands dirty cultivating the dirt of the understory rather than the spectacle of the political overstory. Have a great week.