FIRST READING: And now Saskatchewan has a secession movement

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

TOP STORY

With Alberta potentially staring down the barrel of a separation referendum, a new independence group is now touring Saskatchewan urging residents to join them.

Over the last three weeks, the Saskatchewan Prosperity Project has conducted 10 town halls in churches, civic centres and banquet rooms, all of them advertised with the slogan of “what would an Independent Saskatchewan look like?”

According to the group’s Facebook page, turnout hasn’t been bad, at least by the standards of wintertime Prairie political meet-ups. A gathering in Saskatoon reportedly received 160 attendees, with another in Swift Current attracting 260.

“When you go, we want to be right in your back pocket and go with you,” group president Brad Williams, a recently retired corrections officer, with Alberta YouTuber John Bolton.

In a Dec. 10 appearance on the Shawn Newman Podcast, Williams said he got into separatist politics in October when he took a piece of paper and wrote down the pros and cons of remaining part of Canada.

He said the pro-independence side of the paper was “really long,” while the status quo had “zero.”

“I tried really hard to put something down on that side, and there was nothing,” he said.

The group’s name is not a coincidence. The SPP is closely aligned with the Alberta Prosperity Project, one of the Alberta organizations most active in pushing for a separation referendum.

The APP is the group who, in October, said they’d been able to secure “high level” talks with unspecified U.S. officials during a visit to Washington, D.C.

“The confidential meeting, requested by U.S. counterparts to maintain diplomatic discretion, focused on economic partnerships, energy security, and the strategic benefits of an independent Alberta Republic,” read a statement.

Saskatchewan’s grievances with Ottawa are slightly different than Alberta’s, which are driven largely by frustrations at federal curbs on the oil and gas industry. Nevertheless, both provinces are net contributors to Confederation. That is, Saskatchewanians paid more in federal taxes than they received in federal spending.

In recent years, both Alberta and Saskatchewan have also been at the forefront in pushing back against federal mandates ranging from carbon taxes to gun bans.

Speaking to Bolton, Williams also described a cultural difference. “Easterners are just different than we are out west here; we just aren’t of the same cloth. There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said.

As far back as April, there were signs that Saskatchewan was the single most separatist province in Confederation.

In a poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute, 33 per cent of Saskatchewan respondents said they would endorse Saskatchewan statehood if Prime Minister Mark Carney won the April 28 federal election. This was higher than either Alberta or Quebec, both of which charted separatist sentiments at 30 per cent.

Earlier this month, Elections Alberta certified a petition calling for a referendum on the question of: “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?”

The petition was actually organized by an anti-separatist group, Alberta Forever Canada. However, if the Alberta government accedes to the terms of the petition in its current form, it would effectively be a vote on Alberta independence.

The Saskatchewan Prosperity Project town halls have been conducted alongside a group called Prairie Rising, which Williams has described as being more on the legal side of the nascent Saskatchewan independence movement. His group covers “education,” while Prairie Rising looks into the actual technicalities of divorcing Canada.

It wasn’t too long ago that all of this Prairie separatism was occurring against the ironic backdrop of Quebec separatism hitting all-time lows.

Earlier this year, a series of casual annexation threats by U.S. President Donald Trump drove even longtime Quebec nationalists to take the federalist side in Canada’s trade war with the U.S.

Nevertheless, those sentiments appear to be fading as Quebecers move ever closer towards electing another separatist Parti Québécois government in 2026.

As of an early December poll, the Parti Québécois under leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is likely to capture a majority in a general election to be held no later than October.

Plamondon has begun openly describing his terms for a sovereign Quebec, including a separate currency and closer relations with the United States. All the while, the federal government is apparently readying plans on how to best counter a third Quebec independence referendum.

Earlier this month, a source within the Carney government told CBC they’d begun conducting meetings on how to “promote the benefits of the federation to Quebecers.”

As to the actual legal mechanics of secession, Canada is one of the few countries on earth that actually has an established roadmap on how pieces of it can claim independence. The catch is that this roadmap is near-impossible to accomplish.

According to the federal Clarity Act, a province can only leave confederation if a “clear majority” of its voters endorse a secession referendum. And even then, full secession can only occur if granted the unanimous approval of the other nine provinces.

Although Prairie separatism has been hitting historic highs in polls, it’s a bit of a different story when it comes to electoral politics.

In June, two separatist candidates contested a byelection in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, a provincial riding that is historically one of the most conservative in Alberta.

Nevertheless, both options — the Republican Party of Alberta and the Wildrose Loyalty Coalition — together garnered just 19 per cent of the vote, slightly behind the 20 per cent won by the NDP.

IN OTHER NEWS

In 2021, Alberta’s UCP government introduced one of Canada’s only examples of “recall” legislation. By submitting an approved petition to Elections Alberta, organizers can trigger a “recall vote” of an MLA which, if successful, kicks them out of office. In just the last few months, however, activists have used the mechanism to trigger recall votes for 21 of the province’s 47 UCP MLAs. This week, Premier Danielle Smith (one of the recalled) complained that a “very important mechanism” was being “abused.”

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.