Alberta's independence movement is a global rarity: right-wing separatists

OTTAWA — Referendum talk is heating up in both Quebec and Alberta to start the year, but the pro-independence talk is coming from opposite sides of the political spectrum.

While the (mostly) centre-left Parti Québécois and democratic socialist Québec Solidaire have long fronted Quebec’s separatist movement, Alberta separatism is an almost entirely right-wing phenomenon.

Recent polls show that support for independence is widespread among supporters of Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party, but almost non-existent among those who back the Alberta NDP.

And the Stetson-hatted cheerleaders of Alberta’s independence movement have shown no interest in making it a cross-partisan one, regularly spitting out MAGA-infused talking points about how the province’s rugged individualism makes it culturally incompatible with Canada’s woke, post-national malaise.

Cameron Davies, leader of the separatist Republican Party of Alberta, said in a recent interview that he’d be focusing future outreach efforts exclusively on right-leaning partners, and not left-of-centre groups like the U.S. Democratic Party.

“I’ve never seen evidence that the Democratic side really values the ideals of freedom and independence, so I don’t think (meeting with Democrats) would be a really valuable use of my time,” said Davies.

Davies said he’ll be rooting for Republican candidates in November’s midterm elections and is planning engagements with the “freedom loving” right-wing governments of El Salvador and Argentina.

Joseph Heath, a political philosopher at the University of Toronto, said that Davies’s positioning fits within a long history of separatism on Alberta’s populist right, starting with the social credit movement of the 1920s and 1930s.

“The roots of Alberta separatism have always been tied to the social credit movement, and have always been part of that social credit, populist strain on the right in Alberta,” said Heath.

The movement, which sought to free individuals from oppressive economic systems via the issuance of universal basic incomes, rose to prominence in Alberta, and elsewhere in the Prairies, during the Great Depression.

Alberta’s first brush with separatism took place in the mid-1930s, when Ottawa put the kibosh on Social Credit premier William “Bible Bill” Aberhart’s push to flood the province’s economy with quasi-monetary “prosperity certificates.”

Heath noted that a second wave of Alberta separatism emerged during the energy crises of the 1970s, this time focusing on control over the province’s abundant oil and gas reserves.

He said there was a new cultural dimension to this era of separatism, which coincided with Albertans patterning their dress and customs after depictions of Texas and other parts of the U.S. frontier in American popular culture.

“A lot of Albertans were sort of re-imagining themselves at the time to match what they saw on their screens when they were watching shows like Dynasty and Dallas ,” said Heath.

Heath, who grew up in Saskatchewan in the 1970s and early 1980s, says he still remembers making fun of Albertans for wearing pointed cowboy boots instead of rounded ones.

“That was usually a sign that someone had been watching too much American TV,” said Heath.

These two historical currents intersected in 1982 when separatist Gordon Kesler, a 36-year-old oil scout and rodeo rider, pulled of a surprising by-election win in the Social Credit stronghold of Olds-Didsbury, a result seen as a death knell for the party.

Daniel Miller, a leader of Texas’s independence movement , says that his state’s rugged ethos makes it a kindred spirit with Alberta.

“The Albertans I’ve spoken to have gotten a bit miffed whenever I’ve called Alberta the Texas of Canada. They like to respond, no, Texas is the Alberta of the United States,” joked Miller.

Miller says the two oil-rich jurisdictions would be critical allies as independent states.

“The idea that Texas and Alberta are very similar economically is the key,” said Miller.

Miller, whose home in east Texas is just a few miles away from where the terminus of the cancelled Keystone XL pipeline would have been, says the cross-border energy relationship is critical for both jurisdictions.

“A key part of the Texas economy is refining petroleum products,” said Miller, adding he was skeptical that Venezuelan oil would displace the Alberta crude that flows into Gulf Coast refineries anytime soon.

Miller says he supports Alberta independence and has had conversations with “various” pro-independence organizations and individuals.

Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University, says that Alberta’s right-wing strain of separatism mirrors right-leaning independence movements in other relatively well-off places like Belgium’s Flanders region and northern Italy.

“In Alberta and other relatively rich areas, substate nationalism is often a reflection of wanting to cut off what are seen as unjustified economic transfers to poorer regions,” said Beland.

Beland said this ideology isn’t viable in the relatively poor Quebec, which sees a massive net-benefit from equalization and other federal transfers.

“So I think there’s a bigger story … about the dynamics of federation, and where the specific region or unit stands in terms of (relative) wealth,” said Beland.

National Post

rmohamed@postmedia.com

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