James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.History, at its marrow, is not the cold machinery of dates and documents. It is the tremor of a single voice at the right — or wrong — moment, and the way that voice stirs, bends, or stiffens the spines of those around it.Julius Caesar, pausing at the Rubicon, gave history one of its most immortal footnotes: “Alea iacta est” — the die is cast. He knew that once his boot touched the far bank, there was no return. It was disobedience against the Roman Senate, yes, but more — a declaration that destiny sometimes requires resistance to a corrupt government.Abraham Lincoln, amid the thunder of cannon and the graves of Gettysburg, offered not mere words but scripture for democracy itself: “That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” He distilled a civil war into the preservation of humanity’s most fragile ideal, a democratic republic..EDITORIAL: LGB breaking free from the rainbow alphabet soup.Alberta, too, has had its Rubicon’s. Lougheed, that titan in a grey suit, during Ottawa’s piratical energy raids, declared: “Let us be masters of our own house.” In those seven words, he granted Alberta not only a defense of its resources but a creed of autonomy.Such men — Caesar, Lincoln, Lougheed — spoke from conviction, not calculation. Their compass needles did not quiver with polling data; they pointed, unwavering, to a fixed north..Yet Alberta has known both sorts. Aberhart, Manning, Klein — men of principle who knew what they stood for. Then the dilution: Stelmach, Redford, Prentice — administrators with wet fingers held aloft, consulting the breezes of consultants, until the conservative base tired, stayed home, and delivered Alberta to Rachel Notley and her accidental NDP interregnum.The prodigal son was Jason Kenney, back from Ottawa with his pickup truck and promises of steel. He spoke big: “Alberta will not back down.” But when Ottawa pressed its thumb — on pipelines, on carbon taxes, on equalization — Kenney’s trumpet squealed, and it was not defiance but accompaniment. On COVID restrictions, he marched in their parade. The base had seen enough; he was dismissed.Enter Danielle Smith — once exiled, chastened, now reborn. She returned to the fold having learned her lessons in the wilderness. To her base, she has sounded like a restoration: faith, family, freedom not as slogans but as lodestars. She has taken bold stances: on shielding classrooms from pornography, on confronting addiction with treatment not indulgence, on innovation in energy..EDITORIAL: Ottawa’s ‘voluntary’ gun grab is politics first, public safety last.Yet now, the clouds gather. She declared, rightly, that Ottawa’s policies were a threat to Alberta’s very prosperity — that unless the next prime minister “repairs the damage in Alberta” and acts within six months, Canada courts “an unprecedented national unity crisis.” Such words are not commentary, but clarion.But words, as Albertans know too well, have a half-life. Smith now claims she has found “more common ground” with Mark Carney than with any prime minister before. Based on what? Five re-announced projects, empty of substance, do not make progress. No pipeline, no new legislation, none of the “Nine Nasty policies” withdrawn. To Albertans, this is Ottawa’s old trick: smile, nod, and smother while Alberta folds..More troubling still are her mutterings on independence. On one hand, she has been quoted as saying she will do all she can to prevent a referendum on independence. On the other, rumours swirl that her office nudges local constituency boards to back the “Stay in Canada” question, while true independence queries languish. This is the politics of ambiguity, and ambiguity is a poor ally in times that require steel.I have applauded her diplomacy with Washington, her bridge-building with other premiers, even her attempts at a working relationship with Ottawa. But having raised the spectre of a national unity crisis, she cannot now plead that it was only an observation. The words were heard as a line in the sand. Ottawa ignored them. The focus now is on her.Albertans — even those merely independence-curious — understand that until a clear vote, a definitive referendum, occurs, Ottawa will treat this province as a child to be scolded rather than an equal to be bargained with. Smith must decide: lead, follow, or step aside..EDITORIAL: ABC/Disney disgracefully hands Kimmel back the mic — day after Charlie Kirk was laid to rest.Leadership would mean seizing the bull by the horns: declaring a referendum, setting the date, forcing Ottawa to confront Alberta’s choice. Delay is not leadership. Letters to Carney are not leadership. Hoping Ottawa will see reason is not leadership.The base is watching. The November AGM approaches. If she dithers, she will join Kenney in the catalogue of the discarded. If she acts, she may yet write herself into the lineage of Lougheed.Premier Smith, history is not an endless runway. The jury is out, but the time for deliberation is almost spent. Will you take your Rubicon — or will someone else have to cross it?James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.
