James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development. He was formerly a school principal and teacher of history and active in conservative politicsShould you be fortunate enough to travel the stretch of asphalt between Calgary and Edmonton — the Queen Elizabeth Highway, that storied vein of Alberta’s industrial and civic lifeblood — you might miss the town of Olds if you're not paying attention. But to those with ears attuned to the quiet rumbles of history, Olds is no mere prairie hamlet. It is, in the lexicon of political watchers, holy ground.For it was here in 1982 that Gordon Kesler was elected under the Western Canada Concept banner, and thus became the first pro-independence MLA outside Quebec. Though his tenure was short, the tremors from his election still echo faintly in the bones of the nation.Now, history appears to be tuning its instruments once again..Nathan Cooper, the venerable Speaker of Alberta’s Legislature — dignified, decent and decidedly principled — may soon be bound for loftier climes. That departure would trigger a byelection in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills — and with it, the possibility of another political lightning strike. .UCP MLA Speaker Nathan Cooper leaving legislature to take diplomatic role in US .Could this ranching country once again become the crucible for Alberta’s independence movement? Could the next thunderclap come from this quietly assertive stretch of prairie?Byelections are a curious parliamentary anomaly. They are less about governance, than they are about message-sending.Ottawa should pay heed to what happens in this Alberta byelection. These contests offer electorates the rare and delicious opportunity to deliver a well-aimed kick to the shins of power — not out of malice, but of exasperated necessity. And what more exasperating spectacle is there than a federal government prancing about under the accidental stewardship of Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose mandate is as questionable as his memory under oath?If ever there was a moment to make a point — to fire a rhetorical musket in the direction of the federal establishment — it is now. But here, dear reader, lies the rub..Alberta’s independence movement, for all its populist wind, is not a ship sailing in a single direction. No — it is a flotilla of dinghies, each proudly bearing its own flag, each captained by a commodore convinced of their singular navigational genius. There is TIP, WIPA, WLC, and now the Republican Party of Alberta — a roll call that sounds more like an alphabet soup of defiance than a united political front.To this, we add a cadre of interest groups — the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP,) Alberta First, and others — who operate in the public square but eschew the ballot box. They’ve been doing the heavy lifting of educating Albertans on the constitutional straitjacket they find themselves bound within. But they are not contenders in the political coliseum..So what is to be done?Let me hazard a suggestion — modest, but with purpose. Set aside the petty warlordism. Let the independence parties rally behind a single, credible candidate — ideally someone from a respected group like APP — who runs under a single party banner in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills. Let the other parties set aside their logos and egos for the sake of the cause. One flag. One candidate. One message.If they do this — if they pull off this rare and radical act of unity — then what happens in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills won’t just be another by-election. It will be a thunderclap. A Lexington moment. A declaration that the West is no longer content to be the hewer of wood and drawer of constitutional water..To the independence parties, I say this: history is offering you a stage. Will you rise to it, or retreat into the comfort of fractional irrelevance?Statesmanship, unlike politics, is the art of thinking beyond the next headline. If Alberta’s independence movement cannot unite around a common purpose in this moment, it may forfeit its opportunity to alter the arc of this nation’s story. But if it can — if it dares — then Ottawa might at last hear the echo of history coming not from Quebec, but from the wheat fields of Olds.James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development. He was formerly a school principal and teacher of history and active in conservative politics.
