My Strange Canada Day with the Alberta Separatists

Better-adjusted people would have spent Canada Day going camping or floating on a river. Instead, I rented a Nissan Sentra, slapped on a cowboy hat and drove down to Mirror, Alberta, for a separatist rally that checked all my boxes for weird, far-right esoterica.

The event, billed “Albertans Day,” was held at the Whistle Stop Cafe, run by notorious COVID restrictions scofflaw Chris Scott. The event literature advertised free hot dogs and hamburgers. Usually I’m not one to turn down free food, but in this case it was a hard no.

The list of speakers included far-right German politician Christine Anderson, People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier, Republican Party of Alberta Leader Cameron Davies — the public face of Alberta separatism — and renowned heart surgeon turned COVID critic Dr. Dennis Modry, among more marginal figures in the movement.

In a field there was a bouncy castle set up right next to a stage, where “Freedom Convoy” leader Tamara Lich and her band performed later in the day.

There were vendors who set up shop to hawk items from art to wood-splitting swords, and tables for both Alberta separatist parties — the Republicans as well as the Independence Party of Alberta.

When I asked someone at the Independence Party tent what the difference between the two parties was, he shrugged and said his party’s been around longer.

Hundreds of people attended the rally throughout the day. Most of the ones I spoke to were from central or southern Alberta.

Dozens of attendees camped out in their RVs and trailers either in the parking area just north of the Whistle Stop or near the stage.

Signs I saw included: “Axe the Snakes: WHO-UN-WEF”; “Free Canada”; “WEF Welcomes You to the European Union, Alberta Is Going to Make a Great Country”; and, of course, “Fuck Carney.” One art vendor included an Israeli flag alongside the Alberta flag on her tent.

Almost everybody was white, with an average age I would peg at 55. Joke all you want about boomers, but these are the people most likely to vote in a referendum.

“Jeremy, why would you give a platform to this assortment of cranks and yahoos?”

I can foresee some readers asking this question, and in normal times, it would be a reasonable one. But we’re not living in normal times.

These people already have a platform. Premier Danielle Smith takes their demands seriously. Even if she isn’t going quite as far as they would like, Smith is inching the conversation in their direction.

Her political fate is tied up in giving the separatists and COVID contrarians an “outlet,” as she said in defence of lowering the threshold for referendums and launching the “What’s Next” panel, which will look at the possibility of initiating referendums on a range of issues.

It’s easy to scoff at Davies and the Republicans’ failure to capture more than 18 per cent of the vote in the recent Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills byelection — in what is supposed to be the epicentre of separatist sentiment. But I can’t help but wonder how the Republicans would have fared had Smith’s United Conservative Party not endorsed the idea of an independence referendum next year. And a byelection isn’t the same as a referendum.

So the question isn’t whether we give separatists a platform. It’s do we give them an uncritical platform by, say, publishing a first-person essay from a participant in the Coutts blockade, or do we go to their events and provide critical analysis of what we witness, with a healthy dose of ridicule?

At some point along the journey down Highway 21 to Mirror, I realized that I forgot my sunscreen at home. After asking around a bit if anyone had some, I realized that this would blow my cover, considering the etymology of the term “redneck.”

Consider sunscreen to be a vaccine for your skin. Why use it when you can just sit in the shade?

As I arrived at the Whistle Stop, I could hear a Québécois accent coming from the speakers’ stage.

That was the voice of People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier, a one-time Conservative cabinet minister who decided to occupy the far right of the Canadian political spectrum after losing the 2017 party leadership race to Andrew Scheer.

If you’re wondering why a Quebec-based federal party leader was spending Canada Day at a separatist rally in Alberta, you’re not alone.

By the time I got to the stage, Bernier was just wrapping up his speech, so I approached him after, emphasizing that I’m not mainstream media, and asked him for the gist.

Bernier said he voted in favour of Quebec’s 1995 independence referendum not because he’s a separatist, but because of his support for “radical decentralization” of Confederation.

In order to support this vision of the Canadian state, Bernier said, Alberta needs to vote to separate.

“You'll have the opportunity to go do what you want, so there's no risk by voting yes,” he said.

“I'm the only federalist — one of the founding leaders of a national party — that is supporting you voting yes, because you'll have all the opportunity to have what you want from Ottawa.”

But, really, Bernier was there to campaign for his candidate in the just-announced Aug. 18 byelection in nearby Battle River-Crowfoot, in which Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will have a do-over after losing his suburban Ottawa seat in the April 29 federal election.

Bernier’s party failed miserably in that election, receiving less than one per cent of the vote, compared with its high of five per cent in the last election.

“I believe that that election was not a real election,” he said. “It was a kind of a referendum on who will be the best one to deal with President Trump: Carney or Poilievre.”

Bernier would deal with President Donald Trump by being even more obsequious than Prime Minister Mark Carney, removing the “communist system” of supply management, which protects Canadian dairy farmers from being put out of business by U.S. agribusiness, so that Canada can “reach a good free-trade agreement with Trump.”

I asked Bernier whether he or his people had any sunscreen they could spare. He laughed and patted me on the shoulder.

Modry, who co-founded the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project, took issue with Bernier’s suggestion that a vote in favour of separation could alter the terms of Confederation in Alberta’s favour.

Modry said the 2000 Clarity Act, which outlined conditions under which a province can separate from Canada after the 1995 Quebec referendum, doesn’t actually provide a “legal pathway” for Alberta to leave Canada, because its preamble refers to “negotiations that might lead to secession.”

If those negotiations don’t result in independence, Modry said, Alberta should “unilaterally” declare independence and seek international recognition, primarily from the United States, citing the precedent of Kosovo, which was recognized by Canada, the United States and European countries when it unilaterally declared independence in 2008.

Really? Kosovo?!

I can think of a few differences between the cases of Alberta and Kosovo, chief among them NATO’s illegal 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999, which bolstered Kosovo Liberation Army ground forces.

Just as I wouldn’t want a lawyer to give me heart surgery, I’m not sure I trust a heart surgeon’s legal analysis.

You might remember Cameron Davies as the communications director for 2017 UCP leadership kamikaze candidate Jeff Callaway. Davies was fined $27,000 for violations of election law during Callaway’s campaign.

Davies has now rebranded as a diehard Alberta patriot. The Alberta Republican leader was on the ballot for the party in the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills byelection, failing to place even ahead of the NDP in the rural central Alberta riding.

He attributed his poor byelection showing to there being “a lot of fear out there” regarding Albertan independence.

“The unfortunate reality is that the only thing that's missing in this entire equation has been for the last couple of years, is the political will,” Davies said.

Another thing that appears to be missing is popular support — at least for now.

Davies depicted the byelection results as “just the start line,” with his ambition being to establish a governing coalition with the UCP “that’s not afraid to talk about” separatism.

Say what you will about the UCP, but it certainly hasn’t been afraid to raise the prospect of separation.

But Davies was far from the only attendee who feels that Smith is trying to sandbag the separatist movement.

I spoke briefly with Benita Pedersen, a prominent far-right activist who moonlights as a DJ and karaoke host, as she worked the sound at the music stage.

“The premier is not doing enough fast enough. She was elected to make a better Alberta. She does not need a referendum for every issue,” said Pedersen, who emphasized that she likes Smith but wants her to go further.

Smith should “immediately” introduce an Alberta pension plan, create Alberta employment insurance and establish an Alberta police force, she said.

“She just needs to do it,” Pedersen said, as onlookers to our conversation nodded along.

There was a musical interlude on the stage that provided some levity before the dark depths of Christine Anderson’s keynote diatribe.

Kate Graham, who runs an organization called I Am Albertan, launched into her separatist rendition of “Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin, which really must be seen to get the full experience.

Oh, Lord, won't you bring us independence?
Ottawa is killing us, we must make amends
Worked hard all our lifetimes, no help from those friends
Oh, Lord, won't you bring us independence?
Oh, Lord, won't you get us a way to be free?
From Ottawa, from the Liberals, from the NDP
I wait for delivery each day until three
Oh, Lord, won't you get us a way to be free?
Oh, Lord, won't you give us one night without no clowns?
No Nenshi, no Guilbeault, no Trudeau to bring me down
Or Carney
Prove that you love me and get them the hell out of town
Oh, Lord, won't you give me just one night without no clowns?

Later in the afternoon, Ottawa convoy protest leader Tamara Lich’s band did a rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” with altered lyrics referring to the convoy and her time behind bars.

I hear the trucks a-comin'
They're rollin' round the bend
I ain't seen the sunshine since Wellington
I'm stuck in Ottawa prison
Time keeps draggin' on
And them big rigs keep rollin' on down to Wellington

Funny stuff, for sure, but it would be unwise to just laugh off the sinister forces mobilizing around Alberta’s separatist movement.

Donning a white cowboy hat, Christine Anderson, a German member of the European Parliament with the far-right AfD party, which has faced controversy over members’ pro-Nazi statements, opened her keynote remarks by complaining that nobody in the European Parliament likes her.

“There are colleagues of mine that can't even... stand to be in the same room with me, and there are colleagues who will leave the elevator the minute I step on,” she said.

I’d say it took no more than 10 minutes for it to be abundantly clear to me why that’s the case.

This wasn’t Anderson’s first time in Canada. In 2023, after she sat down for lunch with Conservative MPs Dean Allison, Colin Carrie and Leslyn Lewis, Pierre Poilievre denounced “her racist, hateful views.”

“The MPs were not aware of this visiting Member of the European Parliament's opinions, and they regret meeting with her," Poilievre added in a statement.

I don’t want to delve too deeply into Anderson’s remarks, which contained some of the most vile anti-Muslim and transphobic vitriol I’ve heard, all of which received great applause, but some broader strokes are worth noting.

My Progress Report colleague Jim Storrie recently published a newsletter arguing that journalists shouldn’t be giving Alberta separatists so much attention because the movement is effectively a smokescreen for a far more nefarious Christian nationalist agenda.

I don’t agree with Storrie’s contention that the separatist threat shouldn’t be taken seriously. But Anderson’s remarks certainly illustrated the connection between Christian nationalism and Alberta separatism.

Anderson spoke of a nefarious global elite that is “operating in the shadows” to undermine western civilization through COVID lockdowns, immigration — especially from Muslim countries — and the existence of trans people.

“I do not know who these people are that are actually calling the shots,” she said, leaving their identity up to the audience’s imagination.

While Anderson spent much of her speech denouncing liberals and the left for seeking “to destroy the free individual,” towards the end she pivoted towards warning of an “attack on our Christian values.”

“I will say for as long as it takes for people to understand we need to defend our Christian values. That is the basis of our kindness, of our tolerance and loving thy neighbour, forgiveness of sins and eternal life,” she said.

Of course, if you ask Anderson, she’s not far right at all, just simply a lover of “freedom, democracy and the rule of law.”

“Our fathers and forefathers had to fight for this, and they literally spilled their blood over it to wrestle it from the former elites,” said Anderson.

I don’t know about you, but there’s something extremely off-putting to me about a middle-aged German woman speaking of what “our fathers and forefathers” fought for.

At Anderson’s merch tent, I noticed her fans were selling copies of the Nuremberg Code, which sets ethical guidelines for medical experiments on human subjects. Anti-vaxxers, including Danielle Smith in a March 2021 Calgary Herald column, often cite the code, effectively comparing mRNA vaccines to Nazi experiments on Jewish prisoners.

Some might suggest that comparing the COVID vaccine to the Holocaust trivializes the latter.

I discovered Tuesday’s event courtesy of a tweet from former premier Jason Kenney, who is always eager to distance himself from the separatist movement he emboldened in his pursuit of the Alberta premiership.

“Sad but predictable that the Alberta separatists have to fly in a far right German politician to support their destructive cause,” said Kenney, who previously never missed an opportunity to proclaim how poorly Alberta is treated by the federal government.

Near the end of her remarks, Anderson claimed she had no idea there was an Alberta separatist movement when she agreed to fly to Canada to be the keynote speaker at an Alberta separatist event. (I can’t help but wonder who paid for her trip.)

“I did not come out here to specifically support the separatist movement in Alberta. I should have known about it before,” she said.

Not knowing the first thing about Alberta separatism didn’t preclude Anderson from providing her opinion on the subject.

“That is a decision that is entirely up to the Albertan people. You need to have a conversation, a debate and a discussion about that, and then you need to make a decision. And whatever decision you take, it absolutely has to be respected by everyone,” said Anderson.

Despite the event being explicitly separatist, there were some attendees wearing traditional Canada Day gear.

What gives? I asked Tricia Pope, who wore a red cowboy hat with a red-and-white shirt that read “Sorry, Not Sorry” with a Maple Leaf.

“I figure we’re still Canadian,” said Pope, who is originally from Calgary but lives in Red Deer.

There are essentially two streams of Alberta separatism, she explained. There are the Wexiteers, who seek to persuade Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia to separate (good luck in the Lower Mainland), and the 51st Staters, who want to become part of Trump’s America.

Pope said she’s inclined towards the former. “If Canada East wants to support the left and Canada West wants to support the right, then why not? Let's just split up and have everybody have their own way,” she said.

Because Canada is such a vast country, Pope figures “that divided, we're better.”

“It's kind of like being a parent of like 100 kids,” she said of Confederation. “Or do you want to be a parent of five kids, right?”

A self-described “big Trump fan,” Pope said she prefers Wexit because she values the “togetherness” of Western Canada, confessing to some residual Canadian nationalism.

“We look like Americans, we sound like Americans, but we're not Americans, right?”

I realized the separatist threat is embodied not by foreign extremists like Anderson, but by kind older people like Pope who have bought into a pack of lies.