Nine Thoughts on Danielle Smith Publicly Hoping Alberta Independence Dies 1. She hopes support for a country falls back to single digits. That is not a premier settling a debate. That is a premier praying the people who believed her go quiet. 2. She says a “very large number” of Option 2 voters are “just mad” and need an outlet. Anger at being treated as a colony is not a mood disorder. Calling it one is contempt. 3. Her greatest challenge, she says, is fighting separatists in her own party. Not Ottawa. Not equalization. Not the courts. The people who took “sovereign Alberta” at face value. 4. She tells them the proper expression of that anger is a mandate on her nine questions. The nine are a pressure valve. They are not a country. Ottawa has ignored worse paper than that. 5. She did not inherit a “separatist strain.” She farmed it, lowered the petition bar, put the tenth question on the ballot, and rode the energy. Now she wants the harvest plowed under. 6. The Mulroney/NEP analogy is the tell. Kill the immediate wound, watch the numbers collapse, pretend the structure is fixed. The structure was never fixed. Hoping for 1980s single digits is hoping Albertans forget. 7. She says a high independence vote is the wrong leverage. The right leverage is “work on these nine things together.” That only works if the other side can be frightened and then trusted. Ottawa is neither once the threat is declared contained. 8. Nixon predicts rural Alberta will “surprise” everyone by rejecting leaving — from a Sundre-country seat. That is not a reading of the land. That is containment: tell Ottawa the heartland is safe before the count. 9. A leader who defines success as Alberta Independence number dying, who pathologizes her very own voters who want a nation, and who treats her own coalition as the crisis, is not holding a movement together. She is trying to close a file she opened. Resign, @ABDanielleSmith. Every day you only widens the chasm between you and your former base.

Please support @albertanowparty. Federal Alberta First Party.

MORGAN: The independence movement is here to stay westernstandard.news/opinion…

I feel like this needs to be said because there is so much tension and division. It feels like every conversation is ready to become an argument. People are frustrated. Concerns are met with labels instead of answers, and people are pushed out. That will not rebuild trust. We must ask where public money goes, and expect officials to explain their decisions. Public service is a responsibility, not a favour. Science develops through questioning. Law develops through challenge. Democracy develops through disagreement. Instead of discouraging conversations or referendums, let’s encourage them. A strong democracy needs informed citizens who can disagree and still be heard. Progress actually comes from questioning the status quo.

This is the most inflammatory thing the Canadian elite could have put up. Of course that is exactly what they do…

It’s comical and hypocritical that @ABDanielleSmith asks Albertans to vote to give her a mandate on the 9 questions, 5 of which she could have already implemented but didn’t since 2024, …. Yet she won’t voluntarily go back to her UCP members to give her a mandate to lead given the massive direction change she had no mandate for since 2024. It’s time for a leadership review @ABDanielleSmith

Not surprised. Alberta’s entire elite is against its working class. #AlbertaIndependence is a working class movement.

A leader who defines success as Alberta Independence number dying, who pathologizes her very own voters who want a nation, and who treats her own coalition as the crisis, is not holding a movement together. She is trying to close a file she opened. Resign, @ABDanielleSmith. Every day that passes only widens the growing chasm between you and your former base.

Danielle Smith’s greatest challenge, she says, is fighting separatists in her own party. Not Ottawa. Not equalization. Not the courts. Instead, the people who took “sovereign Alberta” at face value. Her core support and literal base. #ResignDanielle

There is a difference between saying: “I believe Alberta should remain in Canada.” and saying: “The people inside my party who disagree are angry voters I hope disappear back into single digits.” The first is a constitutional argument. The second risks dismissing a substantial internal constituency rather than answering it. That distinction matters.

If the Independence movement inside your own party is your “greatest challenge,” that tells us everything, @ABDanielleSmith. You are now opposed to your own base. #ResignDanielle

This is the part I find extraordinary. The UCP president has publicly said he believes a majority of UCP members would vote to begin the process toward a binding separation referendum. The premier says the UCP is a pro-Canada party. Those propositions can coexist only if leadership and membership are pointing in different directions. The grassroots will be victorious.

Smith hopes Alberta Independence support falls back to single digits. She’s entitled to that view. She’s also throwing her base overboard. We’re not going back on the Canadian reservation.

I am the Party. “Our government, our caucus and our party support a sovereign Alberta within a United Canada… And the fact of the matter is this is…the founding principles that brought our two parties together”. ⁃Danielle Smith (Sept. 21, 2026). The fact of the matter is that despite being told that it is not true, she continues to propagate this lie that a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada was one of the United Conservative Party’s founding principles. Such a principle was never adopted at the founding convention. (It was so important that it is missing from the Party’s official list of Principles. 🤔). According to Danielle Smith, the “Party” supports this ‘principle’, because she is the Leader of the Party and she says so.

🚨 ALBERTA FIRST 🚨 If you want change inside the UCP, this is how it happens. Constituency associations. Motions. A Special General Meeting. A membership vote. Power does not belong to commentators. It belongs to the members who show up. If you’re Alberta First, join the party, get organized, and get ready for the AGM.

I have created a meme that I think perfectly sums up the last year and a half of Canadian politics.

THE PARTY IS BIGGER THAN THE PREMIER. The UCP is not Danielle Smith’s private political property. It is NOT a federalist party. At the AGM, members can change bylaws and constitutional documents, vote on policy, and elect the provincial board. If you’ve already decided you want a voice inside the UCP, understand where the power actually sits. The 2026 AGM is November 27–29 in Calgary. Membership must be valid by November 6 to vote. unitedconservative.ca/take-a…

The UCP’s published Statement of Principles emphasizes Alberta’s constitutional rights, limited government and Alberta ownership of its resources. It does not contain an explicit principle requiring permanent membership in Canada. So when Danielle Smith invokes the party’s “founding principles” as proof the UCP is inherently federalist, the party’s currently published principles do not state that proposition nearly so plainly.

Want to understand how serious internal party power is? Under UCP rules, identical motions from one-quarter of constituency associations can force a Special General Meeting. With 87 constituency associations, that means 22. And 1 is already down. At the resulting leadership review, less than 50% support for the leader automatically triggers a leadership election. The rules are not decorative.