Because under Canada’s political architecture, Alberta pays all the bills but has no meaningful say. The House of Commons is dominated by Ontario and Quebec. The Senate is unelected and stacked with Laurentian cronies. The courts, media, and civil service all lean left and east. A hundred years of democratic betrayal have taught Albertans the same lesson over and over: Ottawa is not your government. It’s your master.
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In 1998, Canada’s Supreme Court issued its landmark Secession Reference. The Court ruled that if a province were to vote clearly and decisively for independence, the federal government would be constitutionally obligated to enter into negotiations. The union, in other words, rests on consent — and consent can be withdrawn. No different from Brexit.

A few months ago I wrote a post, Electoral College Eh?, looking at the practical impact on US governance if Canada joined the USA, as President Trump has trollingly proposed, and concluded that it would be a very bad idea for the Republican Party given that it would not be the whole nation joining as the 51st state but each of the provinces and territories, and that since most of these lean heavily Left, as seen in the map above, it would mean the GOP would never be in power again.

However, looking at that map I saw that Alberta and Saskatchewan would be good additions to the USA – even better when you consider what an energy and economic powerhouse Alberta is. Their current Right-Wing shading did not surprise me as I recalled reading a story (in National Geographic in the late 1980’s IIRC) about citizens of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba “drifting” across the border to meet up with those from Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota for barbecues and other celebrations, because they had more in common with each other than with any of their respective coasters.

A good brief summary of the history can be found in this article, Western Canada Puts the Rest of Canada on Notice, and clearly those feelings have intensified in the decades since:

For years, Alberta has borne the brunt of federal policies that critics say unfairly target its energy sector. [Premier Danielle] Smith pointed to past Liberal legislation that she claims has cost the province billions by restricting oil production and exports. These measures, combined with Ottawa’s encroachment on provincial jurisdiction, have fueled a growing sense of alienation. Albertans are tired of being treated like a cash cow while their priorities are ignored.
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John Soroski, a political scientist at MacEwan University in Edmonton, acknowledges the depth of this discontent. “These grievances are serious,”

It now appears to be more than idle speculation. Here’s an interview in Canada with a member of the pro-independence movement conducted just before their recent national election:

More importantly the baton is being picked up by Smith herself, starting with legislation that will lower the signature threshold for a petition from 20 percent of registered voters to 10 percent of eligible voters from the last general election—roughly 177,000 signatures instead of the 600,000 discussed above. It also extends the collection period to 120 days.

Judging from that speech it’s clear that Smith personally favors a strong Alberta within a united Canada – but that the province will not tolerate continued federal overreach. As such this could all be a bargaining chip to gain more autonomy. After all, she and every other Canadian is well aware that Quebec famously tried to become independent and failed in the referendums of 1980 and 1995.

But Quebec has the same problem that Scotland faced in its failed independence vote a few years ago; both are tied to the nanny state because they’re not economically independent enough.

That is not the case with Alberta and Saskatchewan:

According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, since the inception of Canada’s equalization program in 1957, which sees the wealthier provinces subsidizing their less fortunate counterparts, Alberta has made a net contribution of $67 billion, $2.9 billion alone in 2021 — which in turn represents only a portion of the province’s immense financial contribution to federal coffers and the governments and residents of other provinces. 

The Fraser Institute notes that the equalization drain represents “just a small part of the province’s outsized contribution to confederation in recent years.” It calculates that “the gap between Albertans’ contribution to federal revenues and federal expenditures plus transfers to the province, totalled $20.5 billion annually in 2017/18. And this measure excludes Albertans’ disproportionate cumulative contribution to the Canada Pension Plan, which on net totalled $2.9 billion in 2017.”

Shown here.

Smith likely also knows that when you start a people’s referendum you can’t predict where it will end up – as David Cameron and the British Establishment discovered to their horror with the Brexit vote in 2016.

Canadian politics may be about to get interesting.