Joseph Woodard served as the Religion Editor for the Alberta Report from 1992 to 1998, and subsequently as the Religion Editor for the Calgary Herald from 1999 to 2006.Alberta faces a clear and present danger to its existence as a distinct and living commonwealth from unchecked immigration. From 2021-22 to 2025-26, Alberta’s student population grew by about 12.1%, from 745,770 to 836,301, almost entirely from federally driven immigration. So a teacher I know in small-town Camrose has students who speak no English whatsoever.This is no accident. Globalists — especially in our federal government — see the existence of an independent, productive middle class as an obstacle to their authoritarian ambition. They need global labour mobility in order to create the service and servant class that they need for a de-industrialized future. In Britain, the EU, Australia, and “blue” American states, the elites encourage a flood of poor migrants, indebted to the government, dependent on public services, and completely unaware that they’re contributing to the slow-motion train wreck of the very prosperity they now enjoy.You may call that insane. They call it “managed decline,” managed to magnify their dominion by means of environmental, epidemiological, and racial panics. If the middle class had our say, we might object to explosive lithium batteries, vaccine miscarriages, and disintegrating schools.Yes, Premier Danielle Smith muses about growing Alberta’s population from five to ten million, but provincial control was at the top of her ballot. If she’s thinking of incentivizing internal migration, that could really upend our federalism. If she wants vetting for foreign journeymen, accountants, and engineers, our new Nigerian and Keralan professionals are already disgusted with our public schools. A very old and very dear friend worked very hard for the option to begin the legal process toward a binding independence referendum. He is now so bitter about the results that he hopes “the movement” either captures or splits the United Conservative Party. When I raised the issues of unchecked immigration and domination of the Alberta Teachers Association, he replies, “She’s just trying to make us scared of Nenshi.”.We should be scared. If the globalist feds are ever allied with a globalist provincial government, they will flood Alberta — even little Camrose — with a million or more unemployable foreigners, completely dependent on them. With the pressure of “educating” them, all the hard-won freedom in our education system will vanish. Proponents of independence must weigh the risk to Alberta of suffering more of the same against their desire for vengeance on the premier for her supposed betrayal.I’ll quickly say here that I voted to begin the legal process toward a binding independence referendum, in the faint hope that 30–40% support would give Smith a stick to beat Ottawa. But Alberta wasn’t there. Support for independence peaked in 2006 at 42%, just prior to beloved Stephen Harper’s election. After Justin Trudeau’s 2019 re-election, an Ipsos poll found that 33% of Albertans believed Alberta would be better off outside Canada. In the October 19 referendum, 25% voted to begin that process. “But it got 50 percent in the rural ridings, even 51 percent in a couple,” my friend objects — as if the rural ridings alone are the real Alberta. Independence activists say that Smith “betrayed” them by spending $9 million of government revenue to support remaining in Canada. “She should at least have stayed neutral,” my friend objects — though she’s still branded a closet sovereigntist by the mainstream media.Okay, suppose she put the full weight of her government behind the option to begin the process toward a binding referendum. And suppose she managed to boost support for that option even as high as 40%. She goes into the 2027 election as the leader of the sovereigntist party, with the NDP crowing as patriotic Canadians. The next election itself becomes the independence referendum, with 60% of the electorate already against her. The support wasn’t there. Those who refuse to see this reality are simply being ruled by their passions. In 2025, the venerable Preston Manning said the independence movement has two of the three indispensable things it needs for long-term influence and eventual success: some popular support — maybe 30%, he thought — and a network of committed activists. What it lacks, he said, is a charismatic leader who can nurture public trust in the ultimate vision. But in fact, this referendum has set up the independence movement for just that necessary next step, the transition of a sentimental movement into an organized political party, with leadership and staying power.Alberta politics has always been a fight between the small towns and the city centres for the trust of the suburbs. This current effort was deliberately run as a grassroots movement, entirely on sentiment, and ignoring the need for visible leadership — as if such “politicking” might corrupt its purity. But the suburbs will never vote for sentiment. To be blunt, there were lots of cowboy hats and Caterpillar ballcaps in the auditoriums, and they all trusted each other. But there was never a suit-and-tie. There was no one there — for now — who could convince the suburbs that they knew what they were doing..Politics is a cage match of passionate loyalties. Many Wildrose veterans simply cannot forgive Smith, as the leader of that party, for crossing the floor in 2014 “to unite the conservative movement.” If she’d led them into the 2015 election, they believe, they’d have demolished the Conservatives and formed the next government, rather than splitting the right for Notley’s NDP.Perhaps. Or perhaps Wildrose never really earned the trust of the suburbs. A Wildrose-Conservative contest might still have given us the NDP. No one knows, but many Wildrose veterans want to pull the temple down around their ears, to punish her for the Fall of their imagined Paradise.That was then; this is now — and I say this as an old friend of Wildrose founder Link Byfield, who was crushed by Smith’s defection, and who died in the months between her 2014 defection and the 2015 election. In memory of Link, I need to say: vengeance will get us nowhere. That was then; this is now. She’s no longer the Chablis-sipping socialite of rural imagination, if she ever was. She has, in fact, ruled as a leader with principles. She’s stopped the surgical butchery of supposedly “trans” children. First in the world, she’s pushed back MAiD medical executions. She’s liberating our education system — our hope for the future — from the ATA’s woke tyranny, with charter schools, curriculum reform, and the world’s most generous support of homeschool co-ops. Wicked Witch of the West? Or a woman who drove in a blizzard across Alberta for Ted Byfield’s funeral?Another friend, confronted with the possibility of vote-splitting in the 2027 election, argues, “If Smith really wants to avoid vote-splitting, she should resign her leadership and open it up to someone else.” Hello? She proved she was right. Alberta isn’t there — yet. Remember the scene in the comedy, Blazing Saddles. The black gunslinger Cleavon Little is surrounded by a lynch mob of blockheads, so he grabs himself by his own hair, points his gun at his own head, and shouts, “Everyone step back, or the n-----r gets it!” In the comedy, the crowd steps back in confusion. That doesn’t happen in real life.In fighting for the leadership of the United Conservatives, the independence movement will squander the very real opportunity this referendum has given them. Form your own party. They now know there are two ridings where they might elect Alberta Independence MLAs, Rimbey–Rocky Mountain House–Sundre and Peace River–Notley. They must get beyond their passions and do the drudge work of forming the party and nurturing visionary and prudent leadership. They must learn to sell their vision to the suburbs. And for now, they cannot risk splitting the vote in ridings where they cannot win — holding their gun to their own heads.We cannot know what the future holds. We can only try to be ready. If the globalist Ottawa and Toronto elite succeed in their ambition to destroy the Canadian economy, the Alberta Independence Party must be waiting in the wings, ready to rescue Alberta from the wreckage of once-great British North America. Then their time will have come. But they can’t expect simply to be handed the leadership of the majority party of a province that’s not yet where they are. At some point in the 2030s, they may be desperately needed, desperately, but their time is not yet. They must devote themselves to getting ready.Joseph Woodard served as the Religion Editor for the Alberta Report from 1992 to 1998, and subsequently as the Religion Editor for the Calgary Herald from 1999 to 2006.
