Danielle Smith announces anti-immigration referendum for Oct. 19

by David J. Climenhaga

February 20, 2026

RABBLE.CA


Alberta premier’s referenda may play in Ponoka but not in Powell River or Peterborough – that’s probably the idea.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith during her fire-free fireside chat about Alberta’s economy and her referendum plans. Credit: Government of Alberta

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith yesterday announced a raft of referendum questions for October 19 demanding provincial intrusion into federal jurisdiction, cutting services to new Canadians and other anti-immigrant measures, and seeking significant changes to the Canadian constitution.

There will be five wordy policy referenda focusing on immigration and clearly designed to appeal to the United Conservative Party (UCP)’s base, but worded to sound reasonable at an inattentive glance. There will be four additional questions asking voters to approve an effort to negotiate major constitutional changes.

Needless to say, once it gets a border or two away from Wild Rose Country’s well-trained voters, all this is likely to float about as well as the proverbial lead balloon.

But if nothing changes in the way the federation is structured, that will be just fine with Smith and her political brain trust. This is because the plan described in her 13-minute televised message last night at suppertime is clearly designed to succeed at the first step, passage by a majority of however many Albertans bother to vote, and thereafter to get bogged down in opposition from other provinces and the complexities of the Canadian Constitution’s amending formula. This will advance the United Conservative Party’s separatist agenda.

In the meantime, with her finger-pointing about how falling oil prices and Liberal politicians are responsible for rising costs and tighter spending in Alberta, her televised chat yesterday evening was also an opportunity to lower expectations for next Thursday’s provincial budget.

As retired Mount Royal University political science professor Keith Brownsey observed yesterday after the video had been aired, “what we have here is a premier blaming immigrants for her government’s failures to maintain health care, education and other social services. What she forgot to mention is that most ‘immigrants’ to Alberta come from other parts of Canada.”

“I can guarantee that there will be no constitutional changes,” Dr. Brownsey added. “She seems to be setting the province up for a vote on independence.”

Smith acknowledged that all the referenda ideas came out of her government’s directed and supporter-packed “Alberta Next” policy snake-oil road shows, but framed that as if it were a good thing.

Throughout the fire-free fireside, she blamed most of the province’s problems on lower-than-expected oil prices, immigrants, and Justin Trudeau, not necessarily in that order. The focus on immigration was widely expected, in part thanks to a couple of her advisors’ intemperate social media posts in the previous few hours.

Smith pointed to Trudeau Era immigration policies as the cause of the province’s shortage of classroom space for the children of new Albertans. Never mind her UCP government’s failure to plan for growth everyone knew for years was coming, or to fund it.

And while she barely mentioned the lack of capacity in Alberta’s hospitals that has seen them descend into chaos in recent months, that glossed over the fact it’s been more than 40 years since a new hospital was built in Edmonton while the population of Alberta’s capital city has more than doubled. It would have been hard to deny that Trudeau was prime minister for less than a quarter of that time.

Naturally, Smith also made no mention of the multi-millions of dollars her government has hosed away on ideological projects and political mischief to own the Libs in Ottawa, like that $70 million for almost unusable children’s “Tylenot” purchased during a short-lived national shortage of acetaminophen in 2022. The Globe and Mail reported yesterday that that Alberta has just spent another $718,000 to destroy what was left.

Nor did Smith say anything about her call less than two years ago for Alberta’s population to double to 10 million people – the better to throw our weight around in Confederation. Or the UCP’s successful advertising campaigns calling on Ontario and B.C. residents to move here. This caught the attention of her own party’s highly influential MAGA base and by the summer of 2024 she had jumped onto the anti-immigration bandwagon.

So her dream of Red Deer, a city of 100,000 souls best known as a coffee and gas stop halfway between the fleshpots of Calgary and Edmonton, hitting a population of a million any time soon will have to be put back on ice for a long spell.

“Alberta taxpayers can no longer be asked to continue to subsidize the entire country through equalization and federal transfers, permit the federal government to flood our borders with new arrivals and then give free access to our most-generous-in-the-country social programs to anyone who moves here,” Smith complained, exploiting her government’s carefully nurtured popular misunderstanding of how federal transfer payments work.

Turns out the population growth she was demanding so recently is “financially crippling and undercuts the quality of our health care, education and other social services.” You know, like public health care, which her government is striving to dismantle.

Hilariously, the premier assured listeners that despite low oil prices and the cost of all those immigrants, “the approved wage increases for our doctors, nurses and teachers will remain in place so we can continue to attract the skilled professionals needed to catch up with our growth.”

Nice to know. I wonder who informed her that, unlike the United States she so admires, even governments in this country have to abide by legal contracts and the rule of law? Can you imagine what would have happened if the UCP had tried to roll back just-negotiated wages with skilled health-care professionals? It wouldn’t have been pretty.

So here are Smith’s planned referenda questions, in her own words: Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purpose of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and ensuring Albertans have first priority to new employment opportunities?
Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law mandating only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an Alberta approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially funded programs such as health, education and other social services?
Assuming that all citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for social support programs, as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring all individuals with a non-permanent legal immigration status to be resident in Alberta for at least 12 months before qualifying for any provincially funded social support programs?
Assuming that all citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for public health care and education as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta charging a reasonable fee or premium to individuals with a non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta for their and their families use of the health care and education systems?
Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate or citizenship card, to be eligible to vote in a provincial election to strengthen Alberta’s constitutional and fiscal position within a united Canada.

Needless to say, much of this makes little sense upon examination. It is mostly bad policy that would not save money and in some cases would violate the constitution we have now. In addition, it would be mean-spirited and often cruel. The final point is a solution in search of a problem, although one that is fiercely believed in by MAGA fantasists.

In addition, the government will seek approval to work with “other willing provinces” to amend the Canadian Constitution in four ways, Smith said. It is not completely clear if this is supposed to be one referendum question with four bullets or four referenda. Have provincial governments and not the federal government select the justices appointed to provincial Kings Bench and appeals courts?
Abolish the unelected federal Senate.
Allow provinces to opt out of federal programs intruding on provincial jurisdictions such as health, education and social services without losing any of the associated federal funding for use in their own provincial social programs.
Better protect provincial rights from federal interference by giving a province’s laws dealing with provincial or shared constitutional areas of jurisdiction priority over federal laws when in conflict with one another.

All these ideas are likely to be immediately rejected by other provinces. Which, as previously noted, is probably the point.

The NDP Opposition, foolishly, decided to wait until this morning after the news cycle has moved on to respond. That fits with Leader Naheed Nenshi’s wish to do politics in full sentences. It doesn’t show much understanding of how political discourse is carried on in this era, though. The UCP, I am sure, was delighted.

Alberta politics


David J. Climenhaga

David Climenhaga is a journalist and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions with the Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald. He left journalism after the strike... More by David J. Climenhaga

Alberta Conservatives fume as Edmonton MP Matt Jeneroux jumps ship for the Liberals

by David J. Climenhaga

February 20, 2026

It’s a pity the late Alberta Premier Jim Prentice isn’t still around to observe the right way to organize a mass floor crossing.

MP Matt Jeneroux giving a presentation when he was still a Conservative. Credit: Matt Jeneroux / Facebook

As everybody in Canada surely knows by now, Alberta Member of Parliament Matt Jeneroux has crossed the floor of the House of Commons to join Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals, who whether you like it or not appear still to be the Natural Governing Party of Canada.

Jeneroux made the announcement in a letter published on social media in which he said after listening to Carney’s world-famous Rupture Address in Davos last month he had concluded we are living through a moment “that demands steady leadership, constructive collaboration between all Parliamentarians, and a willingness to stand up and serve even when the path is not easy.”

Accordingly, he continued, dropping his metaphorical bombshell: “After further reflection with my family, and conversations with colleagues and constituents, I will be continuing to serve in Parliament – and I will be working with Prime Minister Mark Carney as part of his new government …” Boom!

In a social media statement, Prime Minister Carney added that he was “honoured to welcome Matt Jeneroux to our caucus as the newest member of Canada’s new government. Building a stronger, more resilient, and more independent country will require ambition, collaboration, and occasionally, sacrifice.”

Naturally, the Opposition Conservatives are apoplectic. They must have thought last fall when there were rumours Jeneroux might be pondering executing a floor crossing that they had successfully bullied the former “progressive conservative” Edmonton MP into shutting up for the time being and then quitting quietly this summer.

Apparently things were bad enough at that time that Jeneroux felt compelled to issue a social media statement saying, no, no one had threatened him. He announced his plans to remain in Parliament for a spell, then quit, in the same fashion.

Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada who blew a 27-point lead in the polls to lose last April’s federal election and his own Ontario seat, immediately said Jeneroux had “betrayed the people of Edmonton Riverbend who voted for affordable food and homes, safe streets, and a strong resource sector.”

Well, one can feel a certain sympathy with that point of view and still not feel very sympathetic with Poilievre, who has too much of a whiff of the MAGA about him for a lot of Canadian voters.

There’s no question Poilievre has been wounded again by Carney’s strategy. With Poilievre now back in the saddle as the just-re-ratified Conservative leader and back in his native Alberta as short-term MP for Battle River-Crowfoot, he appears to be a liability both for the Conservatives and the folks in his riding who are stuck with him for the indeterminate future.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Carney has found an unconventional route to building the majority he couldn’t quite win last April 28. Every time Poilievre scrambles back to his feet he gets knocked down again, just as he was in November when Nova Scotia MP Chris d’Entremont crossed to the Libs and in December when Ontario MP Michael Ma did the same thing. There are probably more Conservative MPs waiting in the wings, and maybe some New Democrats too if the party chooses the wrong leader next month.

We haven’t seen anything quite like this out here in Tory Blue Alberta since April 20, 1977, when Cactus Jack Horner of the Conservative Horner political clan made the same trip from the Opposition benches to Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government’s side of the House. That made 4/20 a day that lived in infamy in Alberta until PM Justin Trudeau’s government legalized cannabis in in 2018, which may account for a certain amount of forgetfulness among much of the Conservative base.

Horner went straight into the Liberal cabinet, where he remained until 1979, when he was defeated along with the elder Trudeau’s Liberal government. By 1980, the Liberals were back, but without Horner, who was punished by the voters of his Crowfoot riding – perhaps ironically essentially the same territory as that now represented by Poilievre.

So those things may or may not be a harbinger of what will happen to Jeneroux, who may or may not have plans to remain in politics after the next federal election. In the meantime, he is said to abide in Vancouver when he’s not in Ottawa.

For the time being, Carney said in his statement: “As a new special advisor on economic and security partnerships, Matt’s leadership will contribute to strengthening Canada’s alliances and trade partnerships, advancing Canada’s leadership in global security cooperation, and building our strength at home.”

It’s a pity that the late Alberta Premier Jim Prentice isn’t still around to observe this demonstration of the right way to organize a mass floor crossing.

Prentice briefly appeared to be some kind of political genius on December 17, 2014, when it was revealed he had persuaded Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith and eight of her MLAs to cross the floor of the provincial Legislature en masse to join his Progressive Conservative government.

Alas for all concerned, astonishment soon turned to outrage, Smith’s political career quickly soured for a long spell, and the ensuing brouhaha played a significant role in the election of Rachel Notley’s NDP in May 2015.

Probably the first political casualty of the mass floor crossings of 2014 was Rob Anderson, MLA for Airdrie at the time, who in 2010 had quit the PCs and crossed the floor to join the Wildrose Party and then crossed back with Smith, making him a double floor crosser. In January 2015, presumably reading the handwriting on the wall, he announced he was leaving politics.

Unfortunately for Alberta, it could be argued, like Smith, Anderson found a second life in politics with the United Conservative Party. She’s the premier and he’s her chief of staff, an intemperate social media commentator, and a co-author of the separatist Free Alberta Strategy that appears to have been fully adopted by the party.

Carney, meanwhile, is demonstrating a more effective way to use floor-crossings to keep his political opponents off balance is to make one bombshell announcement at a time.

Well, they call ’em the L-shaped party for a reason, and they sure can execute a smuggler’s turn on policy when necessary, faster than their Conservative rivals seem to be able to manage.




David J. Climenhaga

David Climenhaga is a journalist and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions with the Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald. He left journalism after the strike... More by David J.

Avi Lewis answers rabble’s NDP leadership questionnaire

February 23, 2026

rabble.ca

rabble is asking each of the candidates for the NDP leadership seven questions on party strategy, Indigenous issues, dealing with Donald Trump and more. Here are the answers from Avi Lewis.

Avi Lewis at a campaign event. Credit: Avi Lewis / X

Please tell our readers three policies you would champion as NDP leader.

As NDP leader, I would champion the creation of public options in every sector of our economy where the market is failing. While one-in-four Canadians live in food-insecure households and food bank usage skyrockets, Galen Weston, the owner of Loblaws, is worth $18 billion. This is classic market failure, and shows who benefits and who suffers in our current economy, where every sector is dominated by a handful of colluding corporations. It’s why our campaign is proposing a public option for cell phones, internet, postal banking, and groceries. Think Costco run as a public service – a public network of 50 grocery stores across the country would offer 30 to 45 per cent cheaper food prices and cost $300 million a year to run. That’s just one half of one percent of the defence budget.

Second, we are running on a Green New Deal to create over a million good-paying union jobs in every corner of this country by investing two per cent of Canada’s GDP in tackling the climate emergency, creating decades of employment for trades workers, care workers, transportation workers, youth, scientists, fossil fuel workers, and more. This work will be supported by a new generation of green public corporations like neighbourhood utilities, heat pump manufacturers and installers, the care economy (care work is low carbon!) electric bus factories and more.

Thirdly, a national rent cap that will give power back to renters and put an end to steep rent hikes. The cap will mean that rent cannot be raised by more than the rate of inflation in each province or territory including for vacant units, so landlords cannot jack up rents between tenants. The federal government can do this by implementing backstop legislation that strengthens provincial and territorial rent controls.

Which Carney government legislative initiatives would you change, if you could, and in what way?

First of all, I would repeal the major projects provisions in Bill C-5. It allows the federal government to approve projects, including fossil fuel infrastructure, while bypassing consultations and environmental assessments. It’s the type of bill that would make Stephen Harper blush, ignoring Indigenous rights and flagrantly disregarding the fact that we’re in a climate emergency. We need powerlines, not pipelines – especially not if they’re rushed through over the objections of communities who are trying to protect our air, water and land.

Additionally, Bill C-12 is an assault on the fundamental rights of migrants, refugees, and all Canadian citizens. Rather than keeping us safe, this bill creates a deportation machine that drags us ever closer to the horrors happening in the US. This law opens the door to a new wave of human rights abuses, and tears at the social fabric of communities. We should scrap this law and follow the lead of Spain, who are giving legal status to half a million migrant workers.

Finally, I’m deeply concerned by provisions in Bill C-9 that restrict our constitutional right to peacefully protest. Bill C-9 is an attack on our civil liberties and charter rights. It is designed to limit freedom of expression and the ability of people to organize and speak out for justice, including and especially those organizing for justice in Palestine. I support the cross-country, multi-faith coalition of organizations – including many civil society groups and the Canadian Labour Congress, who are calling on the federal government to withdraw this dangerous legislation.

How would you combat separatism in Quebec and Alberta?

The stoking of Alberta separatism by Danielle Smith, who has cleared the way for a referendum to be held is a dangerous development. This is a cause that appears to be fuelled by American foreign interference, with Trump administration officials meeting with leading separatists. We must strongly reject these efforts, and do everything we can to help Naheed Nenshi win the next provincial election. In my meeting with Mr. Nenshi, I emphasized how I will do everything I can to make this happen, and thanked him for his and the Alberta NDP’s steady work opposing the most right-wing government in this country.

In addition to being dangerous, it’s also a distraction from Danielle Smith’s agenda of cuts and privatization. The UCP government recently passed Bill 11, a blueprint for American style two-tier health care in Alberta. It is an open invitation to US health insurance companies to come in and cannibalize our precious public health care system. We must not let this happen. That’s why the federal government needs to start strongly enforcing the Canada Health Act, to stop this sell off of medicare dead in its tracks.

Regarding Quebec separatism, the key to addressing it for the NDP is by demonstrating that we are a viable option for Quebec’s progressive majority. This includes having a leader who can not only communicate with people in Quebec in French, but also a leader who understands Quebec’s unique culture and politics. It means upholding the Sherbrooke Declaration and connecting with Quebeckers on the basis of shared social democratic values and ideas. I’m proud to have the support of Charles Taylor, who kept the flame alive for the NDP in Quebec decades before the Orange Wave. The task of reconnecting with Quebec would be fundamental if I have the honour of serving as leader.

What would your conditions be for supporting a Liberal minority government?

If the NDP holds a clear balance of power under my leadership I would like to go in with just one demand: proportional representation. Not a commitment to studying it further, doing it later, holding a referendum or some other way for the Liberals to wriggle out of the commitment – but its full implementation after a citizens’ assembly to decide the exact type of electoral system. It is the reform that unleashes all of the other reforms, and it will end once and for all the phenomenon of “strategic voting” where people feel pressure to vote against something, rather than voting for whichever party or candidate truly aligns with their values.

It is also vital to preventing false majorities where a party that wins 36 per cent of the vote wields almost absolute power. What happens if Poilievre wins the next election in such a scenario? All of the progress made by the NDP in the last parliament, from dental care to the first steps on pharmacare, will be put at risk. This is why electoral reform is so important. Rather than a menu of demands, the NDP should have one clear condition next time and it should be proportional representation.

If you were in charge of Canada-U.S. relations, what would your strategy be for dealing with the Trump administration?

We need an independent foreign policy that pursues alliances with a host of like-minded countries. There is strength in numbers, and we should prioritize deepening ties with progressive governments including Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Spain, to stand up to Trump collectively. All of these countries have not hesitated to chart their own course on the world stage, including by condemning the genocide in Palestine and standing up against the bullying of smaller nations in the Western Hemisphere by the Trump administration. The Carney government has been silent on these matters, and the NDP must be a principled voice for human rights and justice without exceptions. In addition, we should not be pursuing deeper military integration with the United States, like the “Golden Dome” missile defence system, which Prime Minister Carney continues to entertain.

As well as an independent foreign policy, we must also build an independent and resilient domestic economy that can withstand the shocks of Trump’s tariffs. Our economy has become far too intertwined and reliant on our neighbour to the south. That’s why we’re running on a plan to expand public ownership, creating new Canadian crown corporations to deliver affordable services from groceries to telecoms to postal banking. And finally, we need to push back against the tariffs with a tax on oil and gas exports to the US, which will also help fund the creation of sustainable jobs and finance the transition to clean energy that we desperately need. 

What steps would you take to decrease growing economic inequality in Canada?

Our campaign is putting forward a comprehensive tax plan for the 99 per cent to tackle inequality and raise the money that we need to properly fund our public services. Inequality in this country has reached unfathomable levels. The top one per cent own almost a quarter of Canada’s net wealth. Meanwhile, the six biggest banks raked in $70 billion in profits last year. Fountains of wealth are being generated, but it’s not trickling down to working people, it’s stuck at the top. We need a government with the courage and political will to finally go after it.

That’s exactly what our plan proposes. The centrepiece of it is a wealth tax of one per cent on the top one per cent, rising to three per cent on the largest fortunes. Such a tax would impact only a small number of people, but it could generate $40 billion a year in new revenue. In addition, we’re calling for capital gains income to be treated the same as employment income, a tax on inheritance of wealth over $5 million, a new income tax bracket for the richest Canadians, a tax on excess corporate profits, and giving the CRA the resources it needs to go after tax cheats.

On the income support side, we would lift people out of poverty with a major increase to income support for disabilities (raising the Canada Disability Benefit to $2150 per month), seniors, families with children and low income adults. We would also create a national framework for a guaranteed liveable basic income, as proposed by Leah Gazan in Bill C-223, to establish a social floor below which no one can fall.

What measures are necessary to empower Indigenous communities in Canada and assure their prosperity?

Empowering and supporting Indigenous communities is threaded throughout our campaign platform on many levels – from our vision of an electric bus revolution that re-connects communities and addresses safety on every Highway of Tears in this land to investing in the care economy, including culturally-appropriate childcare and elder care, to ensuring that impacted Indigenous communities benefit from the wealth generated by mining on traditional territories.

When it comes to development on Indigenous lands, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent must be fully respected and honoured. This requires true, meaningful consultation in partnership and collaboration with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit governments, including with traditional governance systems and structures. Meaningful consultation includes ensuring that all community voices who wish to participate are included in the formal process for projects, but additionally that communities are able to have continued dialogue with the federal government should new issues arise during project development and operations.

Another absolutely crucial element is adopting a “For Indigenous, By Indigenous” Housing Strategy. The housing crisis affecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities is a national emergency. Nearly one in six Indigenous people live in homes needing major repairs that are considered unsuitable for the number of people living there. This is a denial of fundamental human rights, and it has dire consequences for people’s health and wellbeing. The strategy would close the housing gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, through massive investments in urban, rural and Northern Indigenous housing projects, working alongside Indigenous leadership.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge Tanille Johnston’s plan for Indigenous reconciliation and empowerment, it’s an outstanding document that I fully support.

Inside the Right-Wing Movement Pushing Alberta to Secede From Canada


Trump officials have repeatedly met with secessionist leaders from the province, which has large oil and gas deposits.

By Nora Loreto , 

Truthout

PublishedFebruary 9, 2026

A member of the public wears a "Make Alberta Great Again" hat during the Help Us Make Sovereignty for Alberta Happen event organized by the Alberta Prosperity Project in Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada, on March 16, 2025.

Artur Widak / NurPhoto via Getty Images


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Aseparation movement in the Canadian province of Alberta claims to be gaining steam, and its leaders say they now have a meeting booked with U.S. Treasury Department officials. They will be asking for a line of credit worth $500 billion in U.S. currency to help transition Alberta from a Canadian province into a U.S. state.

Led by businessman Mitch Sylvestre, the Alberta Prosperity Project has launched a petition through a campaign called Stay Free Alberta to build support for a referendum to separate from Canada. The group has no official support from any of the elected parties in Alberta.

Behind its rallying cry of faith, family, and freedom, the Alberta Prosperity Project wants a new constitution for Albertans — one “that recognizes the Supremacy of God as foundational to Civil Society and the Rule of Law.”

Unlike in the province of Quebec, where separatist leaders hold elected office, Alberta’s separatist movement has no formal foothold in its province’s politics. Quebec, an overwhelmingly French-speaking province, is the only jurisdiction in Canada with a sizable sovereignty movement. That province had referenda in 1980 and 1995 that asked whether or not Quebecers wanted to separate from Canada, the latter narrowly failing. The separatist political party, Parti Québécois, is expected to form the next provincial government, and has promised a referendum in its first mandate.

Officially, the governing United Conservative Party of Alberta (UCP) is not advocating for sovereignty. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she wants Alberta to remain in Canada. However, the idea of sovereignty has been used by the UCP to try to push forward policies that the government of Alberta supports, especially related to oil and gas. On February 4, Smith issued a letter demanding that Alberta be given more say over judicial appointments. She also questioned why three judges of the nine on the nation’s Supreme Court came from Quebec (Quebec is governed under the Civil Code and not Common Law. As such, it has more representation at the Supreme Court for when Civil Code matters arise).


Mark Carney Warns “American Hegemony” Is Destroying World Order in Candid Speech
States like Canada have long known the current system of international rules-based order is a “fiction,” Carney said.  By Sharon Zhang , Truthout January 20, 2026

Smith is using the sovereigntist movement to try to extract gains from Ottawa but is not formally supporting the movement. When pressed by journalists about members of her caucus having signed the pro-separation petition, Smith told the Canadian press that she doesn’t “police” members of her caucus and they’re free to sign whatever petitions they would like.

At the end of 2022, the UCP passed an act called the Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act. It allows the Alberta government to challenge federal laws that it believes are an overreach into provincial jurisdiction (though the Canadian Constitution already allows for this). The UCP has also lowered the threshold of signatures required to trigger a referendum and extended the period of time to collect signatures. The separatists would need to have almost 178,000 signatures by May for a referendum to go ahead. There are 5 million people who live in the province.

The separatists would need to have almost 178,000 signatures by May for a referendum to go ahead.

Jeremy Appel, author of a forthcoming book about Smith, says there has been a sovereignty movement in Alberta going back to when the province first joined Canada in 1905. From the beginning, the movement was mostly concerned with fighting to maintain provincial control over Alberta’s resources. Then, the federal government created the National Energy Program in the 1980s, which gave Ottawa more control over oil and gas in Alberta, to the chagrin of many Albertans.

Appel believes that the sovereignty movement has its roots in this history but projects its discontent on the ruling status quo. “Canada’s state institutions have been completely hollowed out by neoliberalism and Smith is responding to this wave of anger and discontent stemming from that by … displacing the causes onto ‘woke’ liberals in Ottawa and Montreal,” he explained.

Separatist sentiment rises when Liberal Party politicians are elected in Ottawa, and they tend to be calmed when Conservative Party politicians are in office, he added.

While polls show that popular support for sovereignty in Alberta is on the rise, there is also considerable opposition. Former Progressive Conservative provincial representative for Alberta, Thomas Lukaszuk, recently filed a petition to remain part of Canada. His petition collected 438,568 signatures and was submitted to the legislative assembly on December 1, 2025, one month before the deadline. If it meets the deadline with the required number of signatures, the question about separatism will be put to Albertans in a referendum.

Alberta Prosperity Project leaders have met with U.S. State Department officials at least three times.

The Financial Times reports that Alberta Prosperity Project leaders have met with U.S. State Department officials at least three times.

Prime Minister Mark Carney reacted to the news that Trump officials had met with the sovereignty activists, saying, “I expect the U.S. administration to respect Canadian sovereignty.”

Appel points to the fact that it isn’t just separation activists who are meeting with U.S. officials. Premier Danielle Smith travelled to Mar-a-Lago in January 2025, 10 days before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Smith’s current Chief of Staff Rob Anderson is a former member of the province’s legislative assembly and an Albertan separatist who has an undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University in Utah. On social media, Anderson said the current movement to secede was triggered by Albertans’ hatred for former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

British Columbia Premier David Eby reacted to this news by saying this to CBC: “If you are crossing a border to seek the support of a foreign government to break up our country because you don’t have the support and the resources and the ability within our own country to advance that conversation, and you’re asking the Americans or any other government, I mean that is the definition of treason.”

Trump has consistently referred to Canada as the 51st state, and this group of separatist activists might give the president some of what he wants. With the U.S. administration already meddling in Venezuela over access to oil reserves, Alberta could serve a similar purpose for Trump, giving the United States access to another large deposit of oil and gas. Appel believes that this movement could easily serve as a toehold for the Trump administration to get into Canada.

Trump has consistently referred to Canada as the 51st state, and this group of separatist activists might give the president some of what he wants.

Canada and the United States have a deeply intertwined energy market. In 2023, 21 percent of all Canadian hydrocarbon exports went to the United States, worth some $163 billion in Canadian currency. Of the crude oil that the United States imported, nearly 60 percent came from Canada and almost 100 percent of the natural gas came from Canada.

Alberta produces around 84 percent of Canada’s crude oil. More than any other province, Alberta relies on the United States to purchase its oil.
First Nations leaders have been outspoken against the Alberta sovereignty movement. At a press conference, Trevor Mercredi, grand chief of Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta, said: “Our treaties are with the imperial crown, not with the province of Alberta. Alberta has never been party to the treaties and has no jurisdiction over our lands.”

“I’m calling on all international nations and communities to support the First Nations movement in Alberta, to tell the Alberta government that what they are doing is unconstitutional, and that the foreign interference has to stop,” said Chief Allan Adam from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Nora Loreto is a writer and activist based in Quebec City. She is also the president of the Canadian Freelance Union.

 

TACO Time or Wartime? Examining Trump’s Latest Threats

By Mel Gurtov

February 2, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons, G. Edward Johnson, CC by 4.0. Donald Trump’s photo credit: Public Domain.

Donald Trump is on the warpath again, threatening Greenland, Iran, Canada, and Cuba. Will he be TACO—Trump Always Chickens Out—or will he carry through on the threats—seizing Greenland, seeking to overthrow the Iran and Cuba regimes, destabilizing Canada? Let’s take a look.

Greenland: A “Core National Security Interest”

Jeff Landry, the Trump administration’s envoy to Greenland—he’s also governor of Louisiana—has written an op-ed for the New York Times January 29 that tells us the US intends to dominate the island.

“When President Trump took office last year, he recognized an uncomfortable fact that many others have avoided: America must guarantee its own unfettered and uninterrupted access to key strategic territories in the Western Hemisphere, including both Greenland and the Panama Canal.”

Pairing those two locations is revealing, since Landry proposes that “Greenland fits squarely within” the idea behind the Monroe Doctrine for Latin America. Now that Trump believes he has a “framework for a future deal” on Greenland, the US will use it to (in Landry’s words) “set the rules in one of the world’s most strategically consequential regions in perpetuity.”

“American dominance in the Arctic is nonnegotiable,” writes Landry. “Greenland is a core national security interest for the United States,” repeating what Trump said at Davos. That’s an extraordinary statement: It elevates Greenland to the level of Europe’s or the US homeland’s defense, among other national interests.

And it’s wrong. Chinese and Russian activities in and around Greenland hardly amount to a national security threat. Contrary to Trump’s statement in a January 9 press conference, there are no Chinese and Russian destroyers circling Greenland, nor “Russian submarines all over the place.” Nor, finally, are there any indications that Russia or China plans to “occupy” Greenland. All we see are Russian and Chinese fishing boats.

Nevertheless, the US is going to build more bases in Greenland, establish a “Golden Dome” missile defense, build more icebreakers, and vigorously patrol the Arctic waters to prevent a Russian or Chinese takeover. These plans may conceal a long-term design on Greenland and its mineral resources. After all, governments typically are prepared to go to war over “core national security interests.”

Iran: Make a Deal or Perish

Once again, President Trump is threatening to attack Iran. Just a few weeks ago, the threat turned on Iran’s reaction to massive protests and the possible execution of protesters. The US was “locked and loaded”; protesters could count on the US. But Trump was evidently persuaded by Arab countries and the US military not to attack.

Now Trump, having failed to back up his promises as thousands of protesters were killed or jailed, is saying Iran has revitalized its nuclear weapon capability. That’s the capability he had claimed was “obliterated” in US attacks last June. Trump has ordered US military vessels to the Middle East, saying that “like with Venezuela, it is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.”

News reports indicate Trump is considering various options, including putting US troops into Iran. Evidently, Trump has become so enamored with the successful seizure of Venezuela’s leader that he thinks Iran can be as easily dealt with. Yet Trump also says he hopes to avoid the use of force. In short, more gunboat diplomacy.

Iran is responding, as in the past, with threats of its own and offers to talk. If the US attacks, Iran says it will spark a regional war and that Israel and US bases in the region will be targets.

But Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has also said Iran was “ready to begin negotiations if they take place on an equal footing, based on mutual interests and mutual respect.” He said there were no immediate plans to meet with US officials, adding: “I want to state firmly that Iran’s defensive and missile capabilities will never be subject to negotiation.”

In the past, Iran has also said its nuclear enrichment program is off the bargaining table. That point collides with the demand made by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special Middle East envoy, that Iran stop its enrichment program and transfer all its enriched uranium out of the country.

Will Trump order another attack on Iran? More bombing is certainly possible, whereas a direct intervention in Iran would invite disaster. Trump’s war threats have activated some in the Senate to craft a resolution that would remove US military forces “from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran” unless authorized by Congress. Prospects for stopping Trump by resolution or the War Powers Act seem dim considering that these measures were not enacted to prevent his Venezuela adventure.

Canada: Squeezing with Separatism and Tariffs

Angered by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s upstaging him at Davos, Canada’s trade deal with China, and Canada’s supposed refusal to certify Gulfstream business jets, Trump’s team has looked for ways besides high tariffs to pressure Carney’s government. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent recently
suggested US support for a separatist group in Alberta, arguing that the province is a “natural partner” of the US.

That support apparently extends to the highest level of the US government, according to an account in The Daily Beast. “Very, very senior” officials in the Trump administration have had secret meetings with far-right Canadian separatists trying to shake the foundations of the country. The covert meetings between high-ranking U.S. officials and the Alberta Prosperity Project,” says the report, “have met U.S. State Department officials in Washington, D.C. three times in the last nine months.”

One member of that project who attended the meetings claimed: “The US is extremely enthusiastic about a free and independent Alberta. We’re meeting very, very senior people leaving our meetings to go directly to the Oval Office.” The group is hoping to place a referendum on independence on the ballot.

US officials deny supporting this movement, but the State Department acknowledges that meetings did take place. The US officials’ denials ring hollow. The very fact that US officials would engage with Canadian separatists is a shocking level of interference in Canadian affairs. It shows that if Trump cannot fulfill his dream of making Canada the 51st state, he may still try to pry off one province.

Cuba: Economic Warfare or Regime Change?

Following up on Marco Rubio’s threats to Cuba, the island’s oil imports are drying up. Trump has made sure Venezuelan oil is no longer available, threatening to raise tariffs on any country that might provide it. Cuba’s usual sources of oil, Mexico and Angola among them, are being closed down, almost certainly under US pressure.

Mexico’s President Claudia Scheinbaum insists the decision is a sovereign one, and that Mexico will continue to provide oil as humanitarian assistance. But when we consider that Trump has threatened to go after drug cartels in Mexico, and that the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement is up for renewal shortly, it is hard to credit Scheinbaum’s claim.

Trump has made clear the US strategy for regime change: an economic blockade. “Cuba will be failing pretty soon,” he boasted. Indeed, by some estimates, Cuba has only about 3 weeks of oil, after which a humanitarian crisis is being predicted. Diesel is essential to producing electricity and for transportation, water delivery, and agriculture.

During the Cold War, the US embargo of Cuba was justified by Cuba’s support of revolutionary movements in Latin America and Africa. Now the pretext is that Cuba is a national security threat because it provides “a safe haven for transnational terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas”. No evidence has been offered in support of this charge—and I doubt any evidence exists.

TACO Time?

A president who began his second term riveted on dismantling democracy and doing away with the rule of law has now become an imperialist, with military interventions and weaponizing tariffs the main instruments for accomplishing US goals. How far will he go in each of the four cases?

Trump has a history of backing off from threats, but the Venezuela experience has clearly made him think he has license to intervene abroad with impunity, especially in Latin America where weak regimes are in no position to resist. There’s a good chance he will overreach, as imperialists do, facing pushback that he and his advisers had not foreseen in Greenland and NATO, in Iran, and in Canada.
He will also face domestic political costs as independents and even some MAGA supporters resent his overseas adventures for taking money and attention away from a corroding economy. So, TACO time or wartime?

Either way, Trump will threaten world peace and stability, alienate traditional friends, and possibly spark new wars. Increasingly unpopular at home, he may just be desperate enough to authorize more outrageous actions abroad.

Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.

Venezuela and Iran: Oil and Survival

The global energy map is being redefined and brings Tehran and Caracas together: gaining control of their oil wells requires military power. January 2026 marks a turning point: Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and President Donald Trump both held key meetings with the hydrocarbon business sectors, confirming what had been hinted at for some time in analyses: the US needs to take control, by any means possible, of Venezuela and Iran’s oil resources. In Venezuela, after a disproportionate attack, they managed to force a reform of the Hydrocarbons Law, which had already been relaxed in practice under the confidentiality of the “Anti-Blockade Law.”

By Carmen Navas Reyes

February 2, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

A Final Toast – by Mr. Fish

Venezuela, under threat following the attacks of January 3, and in perspective alongside the historical mirror that is Iran, allows us to study the models of classic oil nationalism and pragmatic resistance. But beyond the economy, some analysts have put forward the theory that Venezuelan and Iranian oil is not just a business, but vital ammunition in the war scenario being proposed by the United States.

The 2026 Reform: Privatization or Tactical Lifeline?

To understand the current reform, we must look at the red numbers. In 2014, Venezuela had annual oil revenues of close to $40 billion. Following US sanctions and the financial blockade, that figure plummeted to just $740 million in 2020. The state, owner of the resource, was left without the capacity to extract it and without banks to collect payment.

The response was the Anti-Blockade Law of 2020, which gave rise to the Petroleum Participation Contracts (CPP). According to the inputs from the recent high-level meeting, CPPs are not traditional concessions. They are service agreements where the private sector invests and operates, collecting its investment directly through physical production (barrels), eliminating the financial transaction that the US could block.

The government defends the success of the model: revenues in five years increased to a record $14 billion in 2025, which, although far from historical revenues, were considerably higher than the $740 million at the worst point in 2019. The reform now seeks to give this mechanism legal status, removing it from the realm of exceptionality, which often placed the Venezuelan state at a disadvantage. Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly, sums it up as a “flexibilization of tariffs” in which the private sector provides the capital and the state maintains sovereignty over the oil field. While Caracas discusses the new legal basis for adapting to the new conditions of energy relations with the US, Donald Trump sent a message from Washington on 23 January confirming the US president’s change of stance on oil geopolitics: “Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world… larger than Saudi Arabia’s,” suggesting that the US could make “a lot of money” from this pragmatic relationship.

The Clash of Visions and Internal Criticism

The reform has sparked some criticism. Former oil minister Rafael Ramírez, who faces corruption charges in Venezuela, described the measure on January 27 as a “repeal of the 1976 nationalization.” For those who have historically defended oil nationalism, the CPPs, within the framework of the reform of the Hydrocarbons Law, hand over operational control—which they consider to be the real value—to transnational corporations.

The government counters with “war pragmatism”: the 2006 model (with 90 percent of revenue going to the state) was ideal in peacetime, but unviable under siege. The new scheme ensures between 65-70 percent of revenue and, most importantly, keeps the industry alive. This represents a forced retreat due to circumstances in order to avoid total suffocation.

The New Cold War: the China factor

This is where the global dimension comes into play. Why are Donald Trump and Washington now showing tacit tolerance for this Venezuelan model (as seen through the licenses granted to Chevron) while maintaining their tough rhetoric? The answer may lie in the goal of containing China.

Several analyses, including those by conservatives such as Tucker Carlson, have put forward a thesis that resonates in the media and geopolitical think tanks: the United States is preparing for a large-scale kinetic or trade conflict with China. In this scenario, control of Venezuelan oil reserves ceases to be a market issue and becomes a matter of pure national security.

Carlson warns that the Trump administration finds it unacceptable that the world’s largest reserves (Venezuela) and one of the keys to the Persian Gulf (Iran) are supplying China. “The oil is going to China… it should be coming to us,” is the underlying interpretation of Washington’s new doctrine.

From this perspective:

Cutting off resources to the enemy: The goal is no longer just to “change the regime” in Caracas for “democratic” reasons, but to decouple Venezuela from China. If the CPPs and licenses allow Venezuelan crude to flow to the Gulf of Mexico (US) instead of Shanghai, Washington wins a strategic battle without firing a bullet.

The Iranian Case: With Iran, the situation is more volatile. Carlson suggests that hostility toward Tehran seeks to cut off China’s main secure energy artery in the Middle East. Controlling or neutralizing Iranian oil leaves China’s industrial and military machinery vulnerable to a naval blockade. And at the same time, controlling the supply routes.

This “New Cold War” explains the current paradox: the US, while turning the Caribbean into a large military base, is allowing Venezuela to breathe economically (through Chevron and, in the future, the participation of other large US companies), because it prefers a pragmatic Venezuela that sells to the North, rather than an unaligned Venezuela that is a secure energy supplier to China and, financially, contributes to putting the nail in the coffin of the dollar as a global currency.

The Historical Mirror: Iran and Venezuela (The “Petroleumscape”)

This dynamic is not new. Venezuela and Iran share a historical “petroleum landscape.” Both suffered Western-orchestrated coups when they attempted to nationalize their resources (1948 and 1953). Both founded OPEC in 1960 to defend themselves.

In recent years, the Caracas-Tehran alliance has been existential. Iran taught Venezuela how to navigate sanctions (covert fleets, refinery repairs, among others). Now, both countries find themselves in the vortex of the US-China dispute. The legal reform in Venezuela is, at its core, a maneuver to survive on this chessboard: ensuring its own cash flow to alleviate the US threat, even though the geopolitical gravity inevitably pushes for greater pressure from Washington on both countries.

This Story Has Been Going On For More Than 100 Years.

The partial reform of the Hydrocarbons Law is much more than a technical adjustment; it is an act of survival on the eve of a major global conflict. Venezuela is sacrificing part of its income and operational control (which it was already doing via the CPP with the Anti-Blockade Law) to reinsert itself into the Western market and try to circumvent the blockade.

Ultimately, in the war for global hegemony waged by Washington, which sees Beijing as its main contender, Venezuelan and Iranian oil are the ultimate strategic trophies. Venezuela and its 100-year history of oil, as we began to study, is one of the battlefields.

Carmen Navas Reyes is a Venezuelan political scientist with a master’s degree in Ecology for Human Development (UNESR). She is currently pursuing a doctorate in Our America Studies at the Rómulo Gallegos Foundation Center for Latin American Studies (CELARG) in Venezuela. She is a member of the International Advisory Council of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.

This article was written by Globetrotter.