New Delhi: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney last week demanded that the US “respect Canadian sovereignty”, amid reports that representatives of the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), a group advocating for Alberta province’s independence from Canada, had met with Trump administration officials.
“We expect the US administration to respect Canadian sovereignty. I’m always clear in my conversations with President (Donald) Trump to that effect,” Carney said at a press conference in Ottawa, emphasising that Trump had never directly raised the issue of Alberta separatism in their discussions.
Oil-rich and landlocked Alberta province has long expressed frustration over federal energy policies, pipeline blockages and seemingly unequal economic redistribution of funds, all of which have fuelled separatist sentiment.
The APP’s apparent outreach to Washington has now ignited new fears for Ottawa about foreign interference in the nation’s internal affairs.
To fully grasp the stakes of this separatist push and its international ramifications, it is essential to delve into the APP’s origins, its blueprint for independence, the historical grievances animating Alberta’s alienation from Ottawa, engagement with the US and the backlash from Canadian leaders.
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Roots of Alberta separatism
Alberta’s separatist movement can be traced back over five decades, and is rooted in the province’s transformation into Canada’s energy powerhouse after the discovery of vast oil sands in Athabasca and commencement of commercial production of oil in 1967.
Producing over 80% of Canada’s oil and natural gas, Alberta generates billions in resource revenues that federal equalisation payments redistribute to “have-not” provinces like Quebec and the Maritimes. The move has apparently fuelled sentiment among Albertans that they are perpetual benefactors to a federation that stifles their growth.
The flashpoint arrived in 1980 with then prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program (NEP), which imposed price controls, hiked federal taxes on oil exports, and redirected revenues eastward. Albertans viewed the programme as a destructive intrusion into their provincial resource rights.
Post-2015, tensions reignited when then-PM Justin Trudeau imposed carbon taxes, pipeline delays and emissions caps, which critics dubbed as an “energy superpower suicide pact”.
Energy projects, including Northern Gateway, Energy East, and Keystone XL, faced regulatory hurdles, court challenges from indigenous groups and environmentalists, and outright vetoes from provinces like British Columbia and Quebec.
Alberta, being a landlocked province, resorted to exporting most oil via costly US rail or discounted to American refiners, and forgoing Pacific markets.
In late 2022, with global oil prices soaring amid geopolitical strife, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government passed the Alberta Sovereignty Act, allowing the province to challenge federal laws deemed unconstitutional, a symbolic but potent escalation.
This marked the entry of the Alberta Prosperity Project, formally launched in recent years as a non-partisan “educational and advocacy” outfit. It bills itself not as a political party but a movement to “educate, inspire, and unite Albertans, businesses, and organisations” on sovereignty’s merits.
Its website outlines Alberta’s economic contributions in GDP with 4.5 million people, and strategic US border proximity, contrasted with perceived federal predation.
APP’s ambition
At its core, APP seeks a binding referendum on Alberta’s future for greater autonomy within Canada, or full sovereignty as an independent nation.
Under the Alberta Citizens’ Initiative Act, for a referendum, a separatist petition needs about 177,000 signatures and APP representatives claim to be collecting them.
According to the APP website, it envisions a post-separation Alberta with its own constitution “for and with Albertans”, incorporating a Bill of Rights. Its mission includes a range of issues such as the Alberta pension plan, an independent police force, control over immigration, citizenship criteria, national debt apportionment, veterans’ benefits, indigenous treaty renegotiations, healthcare restructuring, education curricula, currency, etc.
The APP argues that these steps enhance prosperity even short of separation, pressuring Ottawa for concessions like pipeline approvals.
Strategically, the APP invokes Canada’s legal precedents under the Clarity Act (2000), which requires a “clear majority” on a “clear question”, and the Supreme Court’s 1998 Quebec Secession Reference, affirming no unilateral right to secede but a duty to negotiate post-referendum.
Critics dismiss the group as fringe, but APP is media savvy and its petition drive has garnered attention.
Trump administration meetings
APP’s legal counsel Jeff Rath, who attended the meetings with US officials, told Financial Times last week that the “US is extremely enthusiastic about a free and independent Alberta”.
FT added that APP representatives were planning to pitch for a $500bn credit facility for funds in case of a referendum.
A US State Department spokesperson acknowledged the meetings as “routine” civil society engagements with “no commitments”, according to the report.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however, referred to Alberta in an interview, terming it “a natural partner for the US” and mentioned “rumours that they may have a referendum”.
“I think we should let them come down into the US… people want sovereignty. They want what the US has got,” he said.
Regarding the meetings with US officials, the APP drew censure from David Eby, Premier of British Columbia.
“To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that–and that word is treason. It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada, to seek to go and ask for assistance to break up this country, from a foreign power,” he was quoted as saying to the media.
An IPSOS survey conducted last month found that approximately seven in 10 Alberta residents would vote to remain part of Canada.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)