Is Danielle Smith the Most Powerful Politician in Canada?

In January, Alberta premier Danielle Smith issued an extraordinary threat. Unless Prime Minister Mark Carney gave Alberta more influence over judicial appointments, her government would withhold funding from the courts. In an open letter, Smith argued she wanted judges who reflected Alberta’s “distinct legal traditions”—though what those traditions are is unclear. Canada’s system is straightforward: provinces run the courts, Ottawa appoints the judges. This left many observers wondering, “Can she even do that?”

• Danielle Smith wants greater independence for Alberta, using separation as leverage
• Smith’s political power comes from channelling and magnifying frustrations of Albertans
• The separatist strategy increases her power but could escape her control

Smith is no stranger to that line of questioning nor to the idea that Alberta should play by different rules. Since becoming premier in 2022, Smith has made it her mission to carve out greater independence for the province, and her demands are only getting bolder. Her Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, passed in December 2022, allows the province to refuse to enforce certain federal laws it considers harmful to Alberta. Critics have widely condemned the measure—unprecedented in Canadian politics—as unconstitutional.

On February 19, Smith unveiled a slate of referendum questions for an October vote aimed at expanding provincial autonomy. She proposes unilaterally tightening immigration and access to services in Alberta—restricting benefits for temporary residents and requiring proof of citizenship to vote. These powers aren’t exclusively within the purview of the province, but immigration lawyer Randy Hahn told the Globe and Mail Smith’s position should be understood as a “negotiating tactic.” She also proposes sweeping constitutional changes that would shift power from Parliament to the provinces, including scrapping the Senate, opting out of federal programs with funding intact, and giving provincial laws priority over federal ones. To be sure, these changes require consent from other provinces to implement and could very well set up a showdown with the federal government.

Such tactics also come with risks. In recent months, Smith’s confrontation with Ottawa has faced accusations she is stoking the fires of Alberta separatism—a loose but increasingly visible movement of activists, small political parties, and grassroots groups who argue the province would prosper as an independent state, free from domination by central Canada. Indeed, when she posted her letter about the judicial appointment process on X, she wrote her reforms would “support national unity within Alberta”—signalling that, should these reforms fail, it should be taken as a point for secession. For her part, Smith blames the separatist sentiment on the Liberals—and on the rest of the country for electing them. “The issue,” Smith told Steve Paikin on his podcast back in July, “is that we have a disrespectful Ottawa.”

Maybe so. But there’s no denying that, as long as Smith has separatists onside, she believes she can channel their grievance into leverage. There are a million ways this could go wrong. For now, though, with separatist anger at her back and Ottawa on the defensive, she is dictating the terms of the national conversation—making her the most powerful politician in the country.

Power is a slippery concept, easy to throw around but hard to define. The dictionary provides two simple definitions. First: the ability to do a thing. Second: the ability to influence people and events. We can look at provincial governments through both meanings.

In theory, that first type of power is held relatively equally by provincial leaders across the country—seeing as all have the same jurisdiction and the same level of control over finances and policy. Compared to places like Australia and the United States, Canada is one of the most decentralized federations in the world. Our system has been designed this way largely to accommodate Quebec, which has been protecting its distinct legal, cultural, and linguistic traditions since Confederation.

Because Quebec self-governs in ways that other provinces do not—it operates its own pension plan and follows its own civil code, for example—Canada is sometimes called an “asymmetrical federation,” meaning that not every subnational unit behaves equally; some have more autonomy than others. But it’s important to note that, at least in theory, every province has access to the special provisions Quebec has carved out for itself. It’s just that most provinces are happy to let the federal government handle pensions.

But then there’s that second kind of power: influencing people and events. This might be where a deeper asymmetry emerges. For decades, many in Alberta have argued against the federal Equalization Program. The system redistributes tax revenue to poorer provinces, but critics say it forces Alberta’s oil and gas industry to bankroll less resource-rich provinces, even as those same provinces advocate against pipeline development and other policies that Albertans see as economically vital. The sentiment is, essentially, that central Canada sets the agenda, and Alberta picks up the tab. “There’s something foundationally wrong with that program,” Smith said in a recent interview with Paul Wells.

Encouraging a separatist movement may be Smith’s way of shifting that balance. In spring 2025, her United Conservative government made it exceptionally easy to call a referendum. The Citizens Initiative Act, passed in 2021 under Jason Kenney, previously required a proposed referendum to be supported by 20 percent of the population. Smith’s government cut that threshold to 10 percent of eligible voters from the past province-wide election. The act also required that referendum questions comply with the constitution; Smith’s government nixed that safeguard. As a result, her October ballot may include an additional, and alarming, citizen-initiated proposal: whether Alberta should secede from Canada.

David Schneiderman, a law professor at the University of Toronto, explains the link between separatism and power. A share of those pushing for independence, he says, see “that Quebec is able to extract all kinds of concessions” and hope the threat of secession might do the same. Jared Wesley, a professor at the University of Alberta, believes that logic is widespread among the ranks. “We’ve talked to some separatist leaders who have said it’s not really about leaving Canada,” Wesley says. “It’s about giving the premier a hammer.”

In her conversation with Wells, Smith made clear she knows she holds that hammer. Federal immigration policies have proven controversial in the province; if Ottawa changes course, Smith believes support for separation could fade. “My hope is that we can identify the issues that are causing problems and then see if those numbers go down.” Even while insisting she isn’t a separatist, Smith repeatedly invokes the movement when pressing her demands, hinting that, if she doesn’t get her way, Albertans might just be angry enough to leave the country. Discussing the issue with Paikin, she said, “I hope the prime minister worries about it.”

The separatist movement has given Smith a level of dominance unmatched by any other Canadian politician. There’s also a chance that it spirals out of her control. Many academics and media commentators have pointed out that holding a referendum to appease the fringes of your party is a page out of David Cameron’s playbook.

Cameron, prime minister of the United Kingdom during the Brexit vote, had campaigned on holding a referendum, but he expressed strong support for remaining in the European Union. At the time, it might have seemed like the perfect plan: the more radical faction of the party would feel heard, and the rest of the country would vote—as planned—to remain. Of course, that isn’t quite how it worked out. When the United Kingdom woke up on the morning of June 24 to a “leave” majority, Cameron resigned from office. Brexit was the end of the UK’s time in the European Union, as well as the end of Cameron’s political career (though he did get quite a lucrative book deal out of the whole thing).

Like Cameron, Smith has repeatedly voiced her support for remaining in Canada, though her language has been ambiguous. Again and again, she has called for “a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada”—a constitutional arrangement that does not, in fact, exist. Still, she has stopped short of endorsing the separatist movement, even as she clears obstacles between Albertans and a referendum.

If a parallel exists between Smith’s strategy and Cameron’s, McMaster University’s Adrienne Davidson doesn’t see much cause for concern. Davidson, who researches Canadian federalism, pointed to the Clarity Act, the piece of legislation created after Quebec nearly left the country in 1995. According to the Clarity Act, a successful referendum requires a clear question and a clear majority—terms that, had they existed in Britain, might have spared Cameron from his fate. “The vote on Brexit was so close that it wouldn’t have passed the clear majority question,” Davidson says.

Davidson also makes the argument that, for Smith, there’s no viable alternative to satisfying the separatist vote. The United Conservative Party is a recent phenomenon—formed in 2017 from the Progressive Conservatives and the further-right Wildrose Party, which had been created just nine years prior. As the Wildrose gained traction, the right-leaning vote was splitting off in two different directions, clearing the way for Rachel Notley’s surprise New Democratic Party victory in 2015—the party’s first win in Alberta’s history.

If Smith wants to win elections, she needs the conservative party to stay united—and that means appeasing its fringes. It’s not an easy task. Her lip service to the idea of a united Canada has made some hardline separatists wary. “I agree with much of what Danielle has to say,” reads one YouTube comment on Paikin’s podcast, “however expecting Ottawa to change in any substantive way is a fantasy. The system is rigged and the only way out is independence.”

It’s a difficult balance. Neglect the separatist wing of your party and risk them breaking from the UCP. Embolden them too much, and they may get too big to control. For now, she’s walking the tightrope.

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As much as Smith’s power comes from channelling the existing frustrations of Albertans, it also comes from her ability to distort and magnify those frustrations.

Wesley spoke about the political perception gap in the province, citing the example of publicly funding private schools. Half of all Canadian provinces don’t fund private schools at all, and among the ones that do, Alberta provides funding at the highest rate. According to Wesley’s research from January 2024, 51 percent of Albertans support defunding private schools—the only policy position in his survey that a majority of Albertans agreed with. But when those same people are asked to predict what proportion of Albertans agree with them, the number drops to 37 percent.

That gap matters because it alters political behaviour. If people think their view is marginal, they’re less likely to voice it, organize around it, or expect politicians to act on it. “This government, in particular, is really good at exploiting that gap”—meaning it governs as if the province is more uniformly conservative than it really is.

It’s not only that Smith talks about public funding of private school as a core tenet of “Alberta conservatism” (a political identity that she has repeatedly differentiated from conservatism in other parts of the country); she repeatedly suggests that tenet is a political truth. On the podcast Can’t Be Censored this past October, Smith remarked, “I hope that Albertans are as I think they are, and that they want to be able to maintain choice in the education system.” By aligning her hopes for Albertans with her perception of them, she lets the province know that she believes the majority of people share her stance—an easy message to internalize, even if Wesley’s research demonstrates that it isn’t true.

The gap exists in the separatist conversation as well. Most Albertans aren’t flirting with separatism, but most imagine that fellow citizens could be—if not by outright attending rallies, maybe by sympathizing with some of the arguments. “That’s been a major shift since 2019,” Wesley says. “Before, the reaction would have been, ‘absolutely not.’”

The idea of the average Albertan as a soft separatist is probably partially due to the cultural projection of who the typical Albertan is. Wesley lists off the qualities: white, middle-aged, blue collar, male. In reality, the majority of Albertans are not all of these things. As of 2021, almost 1 million Albertans identified as immigrants, and over a million Albertans identified as visible minorities. When it comes to people living in Edmonton specifically, 43 percent are racial minorities, making it the second-most diverse provincial capital in Canada.

That reality might not matter if enough Albertans imagine themselves—thanks to media, federal political dynamics, and politicians like Smith—as the home of rural living, hard work, white blue-collar men, and good old-fashioned conservatism. So, when the party of good old-fashioned conservatism starts championing a sharp increase in political autonomy for the province, it’s no wonder Albertans assume that their neighbours—just like their government—are open to secession. This assumption could have far-reaching ramifications.

If people view a certain political sentiment as popular, even if it isn’t yet, it can be easy for a bandwagon effect to take hold. The pollsters who got Brexit right, Wesley says, were the ones that asked questions like “How do you think your neighbour will vote?” and anticipated the social momentum.

If power is the ability to exert influence over people and events, then Smith is certainly exercising it. In many ways, the separatist movement has given it to her. No other province currently has such a loudly dissatisfied population. Even in Quebec, where secession has twice gone to referendum, support for leaving the country has dropped off since US president Donald Trump began threatening Canadian sovereignty. If Alberta looks like it might actually walk away, Smith holds all the bargaining chips.

The results may already be visible. Throughout her tenure as premier, Smith has repeatedly referenced the federal government’s “nine bad laws”—mostly environmental policies that Smith sees as harming Alberta’s industries. In summer 2025, when talk of Alberta secession was just ramping up, the consumer carbon tax was the only “bad law” that had been repealed. At the start of February, Smith posted on X about how eight of these nine laws have now been “fixed.” Over the last six months, Smith has clearly been getting what she wants. Does this mean she’ll be able to singlehandedly restructure judicial appointments in Alberta’s favour? Likely not. But Ottawa appears to be moving in her direction.

Here’s what Smith seems to understand: just as natural resources are stored underground, useless until we drill for them, there is political power in the resentment of constituents—dormant until someone taps into it. Is such power worth the adverse environmental effects? As Alberta speeds toward a referendum, Smith will soon find out.