Red Deer, Calgary, Alberta
CNN
–
It’s a Monday night in June, when hundreds of people bravely confront the haze of Canadian wildfires and gather at a spongy sports facility in the city of Red Deer, Alberta.
The Edmonton Oilers, an Alberta team, are facing the Florida Panthers in tonight’s National Hockey League final game. The atmosphere is heavy with expectations.
But these people are not here for hockey. This is a gathering for Alberta independence.
It may be hard to believe given the recent “Starspangle Banner” boos of Canadian sports fans, but not all Canadians have attacked President Donald Trump’s questions about the sovereignty of the country.
In oil-rich Alberta, where the Canadian independence movement appears to be gathering steam, many are seeing powerful and important allies in Trump, where former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s tough prime minister was as welcome as he wanted a “baby, drill.”
While some view the US state as one step ahead, many of the Red Deer crowds believe the US president, as a fellow professional oil conservative, will recognize Alberta’s breakaway if the vote on independence goes their way.
“Donald Trump is not the world’s savior,” says Albert Tarsma, Bentley welding contractor. “But now he is North America’s greatest asset.”
It is not difficult to see the similarities between the US President’s MAGA movement and the forces that influenced it in a hat for “Alberta Great Again” and a poster declaring the “Republic of Alberta” t-shirt and poster “Alberta, Alberta!”
Separatists here have long argued that Canada’s federal system does not represent their interests. That the Stimey government’s efforts to combat climate change is hindering Alberta’s lucrative oil industry (Canada’s largest). To pay more than they returned through federal taxation. Their conservative value is that they are dead by more liberal Eastern states.
“Alberta has been fairly untold since 1905 when he joined the Union in 1905. They essentially used the West as a colony, robbing wealth from the West and supporting the East,” says Calgary singing grandmother Kate Graham.
She will meet with a rendition of Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes-Benz,” lyrics that have been modified to promote independence. Like Janice, she sings it A cappella, Before spending the rest of the event at the booth by the door, we sold items decorated with the slogan “I Am Albertan.”
Similar disillusionment is expressed by the steady stream of Albertans opposed to their homeland on stage, surrounded by large regional flags, each across their soccer goals.
“They want to curb our (oil) industry,” says Mitch Silvestole, a Bonnieville businessman and one of the rally’s leading organizers, as his voice echoes through the PA system.
“We have cancer, we have problems,” Sylvesto says. “We have that big.”
With a strange twist, the push to drive Alberta out of Canada gained momentum just as much as many of the countries united Patriotism in the face of Trump’s tariffs and annexation threat.
Shortly after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party rode a wave of anti-Trump sentiment to win the 2025 federal election in April, the Alberta Legislature passed a law that would facilitate organizing a referendum on independence.
Under the new law, statewide voting petitions require just 177,000 signatures from the previous 600,000. These signatures can be collected in four months rather than three months. According to Statistics Canada, the province has nearly 5 million people, making up more than a tenth of the nation’s population.
One of the most vocal supporters of the referendum is Jeffreyrus, the lawyer and co-founder of the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), which organized the Red Deer Rally.
Russ, well over six feet tall with cowboy hats and boots, is home to the ranch just outside Calgary. He raises racehorses there and closely follows the sport, especially the Kentucky Derby. This year, he smiles and says, “‘solemn’ beat ‘journalism’.”
“If you want to know anything special about Alberta, look around,” Russ says, sweeping his hands.
The view from the ascent above the horse pasture in Rath is stunning: Quaking Aspen, White Pine, Green Rolling Hills.
“It’s one of the treasures of God on Earth. And the people here are very clear people who have a very clear culture and are interested in maintaining that culture.”
In Russ’s eyes, Trump’s attitude towards Canada is an opportunity. His group relies on the support of the US government if they succeed in the ballot box.
“The Trump election gave us a lot of hope,” Russ says. “If anyone has the courage to recognize an independent Alberta, then (it) will be the Trump administration.”
Separatism is nothing new in Canada, but mostly in French-speaking Quebec there was only true political power.
In Alberta, enthusiasm for separation has waxed and declined for decades, initially spurring “Western alienation.” This is the responsiveness felt in Western Canada against a federal system dominated by more populous eastern provinces. More recently, the movement attracted Albertans who were angry at the federal mandated lockdown during the Covid pandemic. Among them was Russ, who had faced controversy in the past as government officials suggested they should face murder and neglecting murder charges against what he claimed was a negative effect of the Covid vaccine.
A recent poll by the Angus Reed Institute found that about a third of current Albertans support independence, but that support has not been equally broken across the population.
Some of the biggest critics of the idea come from Indigenous communities in Alberta, where treaties with the Canadian Crown are older than the province. Under pressure from that community, the government added provisions to the referendum bill, ensuring the right to the treaty, whatever the outcome.
Another poll by CNN’s Canadian Broadcasting Partner CBC found that more than half of the Unified Conservative Party (UCP) vote to separate it from Canada if it gives it a chance. They also found that the proportion of the population supporting independence has remained static over the past few years, but has a share of those who have grown it “strongly.”
“We can’t ignore the fact that more than a third of Albertans are tired,” UCP leader Alberta Prime Minister Daniel Smith tells CNN.
Smith’s party proposed a referendum bill, but she said she herself opposed the separation and preferred to “expand that sovereignty within Alberta-united Canada.”
“We’ve been burning these kinds of initiatives from time to time,” Smith says. “And they’re almost always dealing with the federal government that’s out of control, but when the federal government returned to its lane, they all calmed down.”
“I think it’s a notification to Ottawa. “The question is, what can we do to deal with it?”
One of the more explosive questions surrounding the withdrawal is whether independent Alberta will join the US.
In February, signs appeared along the highway between Calgary and Edmonton, with text urging Prime Minister Smith to tell him that Alberta should “join America.” It was layered over a photo of him shaking hands with Trump.
“I don’t think Albertans are very keen to trade bad relationships with Ottawa over their bad relationships with Washington,” Smith says when asked about the possibility.
In Red Deer, the crowd appears to be divided into this issue. Most people who talk to CNN say they consider Alberta as a completely independent country.
But others, like Stephen, the Alberta emperor construction worker, feel that it’s a good thing to have US power on their part, especially if negotiations fail, especially in the case of a “yes” vote on independence.
“The moment something happens towards independence here, our federal government will be furious,” says the massive, wearing a massive “make Alberta great again” cap.
“They lock us up, lock us up, pull out all the stops, the military, the police and everything they can find.”
It’s a big point to how former Prime Minister Trudeau temporarily invoked emergency laws when he blocked downtown Ottawa to protest a cross-border vaccine order in 2022.
Legislation that has never been used before has allowed Canadian law enforcement to take extraordinary steps to restore public order, such as freezing bank accounts for certain protesters and banning public gatherings in parts of Ottawa. The law also allows the government to deploy troops within Canada to enforce the law, but Trudeau did not evoke any part of that provision in 2022.
“We’ll need some support from somewhere. The only place on Earth that deserves their support is the US military,” says the massive.
A big, big woman overhears him, turns around and nods in agreement.
“I’m with him,” she says, introducing herself as Evelyn Ranger in Red Deer. “I don’t know if Alberta or the western states can make it yourself when they come together, so the state is still a better way to do it, because you have an army.
Russ refuses to call emergency laws or use other measures to overthrow his movement if the federal government unilaterally declares Alberta in the case of a “yes” vote.
“We cross that bridge when we come to it, but we don’t think it’s happening,” Russ says.
He grins when asked if he would go out for an interview at that point.
“Yeah,” replies Rath before laughing. “It could be from prison.”
