Living in Quebec, I watched firsthand how our referendums scarred this province economically for years, leaving marks that remain even today. Businesses fled, investment dried up, health care was affected, we had a huge population flee(including doctors), and it took over a decade just to stabilize. A small number of Alberta separatists seem to think the outcome would be different for them, but the structural risks might actually be worse. The viewpoint that “things can’t get worse than they are right now” is false. Alberta is my home province, and I want better for it than that.

Alberta cannot simply declare independence and call it a day. The numbered Treaty rights with First Nations, specifically Treaties 6, 7, 8, and portions of Treaty 10 and 4, which cover virtually the entire province, are constitutionally protected under s. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. These treaties were signed with the Canadian Crown before Alberta even existed as a province. Alberta’s situation is arguably worse than Quebec’s. These numbered treaties are signed, documented, and constitutionally binding. Alberta cannot even claim that the land arrangements are in any way “ambiguous” because of legally unceded territory.

A breakaway Alberta cannot unilaterally shed those sacred obligations, no matter how much separatists try to ignore them. If Alberta attempts to leave Canada, First Nations governments would have every legal and moral right to refuse recognition of a new Albertan state or nation. They would maintain their relationship with Canada, pursue their territorial claims internationally, and they would win. You cannot declare sovereignty over land whose legal title you do not possess. Furthermore, given how Alberta has historically treated indigenous people and their concerns, why on earth would First Nations leaders ever agree to sign a new treaty with a brand-new colonial state that treated them so poorly? It boggles my mind.

And that is before we even look at the multiple brutal economic realities:

The Corporate Exodus: Most of you know that I’m not about corporations, but if you have a huge corporate exodus, it has very bad economic consequences for everyone, including the poor. Money hates political uncertainty. In Quebec, although it is different, major corporations didn’t wait for the referendum tally; giants quickly packed up their head offices and shifted operations to Ontario, permanently stripping Montreal of its status as Canada’s financial hub. In Alberta, separatists assume companies will stay because “the oil is in the ground.” But while you can’t move an oil well, you can absolutely move the capital required to dig it. Major infrastructure requires long-term global investment, and capital might swiftly flee a jurisdiction trapped in a multi-year constitutional crisis. In addition, people forget that cultural icons like the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames are private corporate businesses. Under NHL rules, players are paid in US or Canadian dollars, while teams collect revenue in local currency. If a breakaway Alberta triggers a tanking local currency or severe economic instability, the math might fail completely. Their beloved teams might either face bankruptcy or be forced to pack up and relocate to American or Canadian markets.

The Landlocked Trap: As an independent nation, Alberta would have no coastline or direct access to any ocean. While Alberta shares a land border with the United States, reaching global energy markets still requires either crossing Canadian territory to reach a Pacific or Atlantic port, or traversing thousands of kilometres of American territory to reach Gulf Coast terminals. In either case, Alberta would be entirely dependent on the goodwill and pricing of transit states over which it has no leverage. International law grants landlocked states the right of access to the sea, but it is the transit states that set the terms, and an independent Alberta would be negotiating from a position of weakness.

The situation is made significantly worse by the fact that Alberta does not own or control the pipelines. The Enbridge Mainline, which carries the majority of western Canadian crude to eastern Canada and the US Midwest, is owned by Enbridge, a corporation operating under Canadian federal jurisdiction. The Express Pipeline runs directly from Hardisty into the US without crossing other Canadian provinces, but it is privately owned by Cenovus Energy and operates under commercial terms an independent Alberta could not simply commandeer. The Keystone Pipeline, owned by TC Energy, runs through the US Midwest to the Gulf Coast, but as Biden’s cancellation of Keystone XL demonstrated, access to that infrastructure is politically fragile even for Canada. An independent Alberta would have far less diplomatic weight in Washington to protect it.

Independence would not hand Alberta the keys to its own energy infrastructure. It would simply remove Canada’s institutional and diplomatic backing, which currently stands behind Alberta’s access to all of it.

Currency Chaos: Alberta would have no central bank. Even if it chose to “dollarize” by using the Canadian or US dollar, it would have absolutely no control over monetary policy or interest rates.

The Pension Nightmare: While independence would mean walking away from the CPP, trying to untangle Alberta’s portion into a new provincial plan would trigger a legal and bureaucratic asset-division nightmare that would take years to resolve.

The Equalization Myth: Many separatists believe Alberta is simply subsidizing the rest of Canada and getting nothing in return. This is misleading and is more complex. While Alberta does not receive equalization payments, federal spending inside Alberta, covering health transfers, infrastructure, defence, and pensions, is substantial. Separatists conflate two very different things, and an independent Alberta would lose that federal investment overnight with nothing to replace it.

Meanwhile, the geopolitics around this keep me up at night. Both Russia and the US have well-documented playbooks for making oil states fail on purpose, so they can swoop in and extract the best possible deal for themselves. We have seen it in Venezuela and Iraq.

Alberta separatists seem to believe that cozying up to Trump-era politics gets them a powerful protector. But the US does not want a strong, independent Alberta. It wants cheap, compliant access to Alberta’s resources under terms favourable to American capital. A landlocked, economically desperate new state, cut off from Canadian institutions and negotiating from a position of weakness, is actually Washington’s ideal partner. Russia’s interest is different but equally predatory: a fractured Canada weakens a NATO ally and sets a precedent for separatist movements that serves Moscow’s global interests perfectly.

The separatists are dreaming of independence while the two most likely external powers cheering them on would be circling to strip the carcass. They think they are gaining an ally. They may just be making themselves prey.

Separatism sounds like taking back control. In practice, it means walking out poorer, stripped of actual sovereignty, and facing a massive constitutional and colonial legal crisis from day one. If the province ever takes this path, I hope Albertans will vote “no” in large numbers so they can finally put this dangerous fiction behind them.