Western Premiers Gather to Discuss Alberta's Annual Threat to Leave
The Western Premiers' Conference opened this week under the familiar shadow of an Alberta separation referendum, a tradition that arrives roughly every fifteen years like a comet, except louder and with more cowboy hats.
Premier Danielle Smith reportedly entered the room with a binder labelled "Pipeline Grievances, Volume IX," while her counterparts from B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba practised the polite Canadian expression that means "we have heard this before but we will nod anyway."
The referendum question itself remains a work in progress. Drafts are said to include phrases like "sovereignty-association," "a new deal," and "please return our calls, Ottawa." Political scientists note that Alberta's separation movement has the unusual distinction of being simultaneously very serious and entirely seasonal, peaking whenever oil prices dip or a federal Liberal says the word "emissions" in public.
Manitoba's premier, who attended mostly for the buffet, observed that the West is not actually a monolith, a fact Alberta tends to discover roughly twenty minutes into any joint communiqué.
By Friday, the premiers had agreed on a strongly worded letter, a follow-up meeting, and the shared understanding that nobody actually wants Alberta to leave, least of all Alberta, which would then have to negotiate its own softwood lumber deal and design a passport. The referendum, observers predict, will pass the threshold for "meaningful conversation" and fall just short of "anyone packing a moving truck."