Forever Canadian’s Next Chapter: A New Model for Alberta Politics?
November 11, 2026 | Alberta, Canada, News, Politics
“Albertans are not right-wing or left-wing. They have both wings. They’re the whole chicken.” – Thomas Lukaszuk, Forever Canadian
By Bob Weber, freelance journalist
It was three days before Alberta’s vote-to-have-a-vote on separation. Outside Edmonton’s Expo Centre, people lined up for nearly a kilometre waiting to enter a pro-Canada rally sponsored by the group Forever Canadian. The mood was upbeat, even celebratory. The crowd was awash in red. Jackets, t-shirts, ball caps and hoodies flew enough maple leaves for a small forest. Inside, floodlights flashed, flags waved and music pumped.
But the din was nothing compared to the roar from 6,000 throats that greeted the headline speakers – Prime Minister Mark Carney and the leader of Forever Canadian, Thomas Lukaszuk.
“Now is the time to send a strong signal to the world that Canada is united, independent, and will never become a 51st state,” orated Lukaszuk to thunderous cheers. “Friends, we are making history over here and I know that 50 or 100 years from now our children and grandchildren will be studying about this moment in their social studies classes. And they will be looking back at us in 2026 and judging us for who we were.”
More cheers. Many, many more.
A few days after that vote decisively repudiated separation, Lukaszuk sat in Forever Canadian’s offices in a northwest Edmonton light industrial zone. He joked about the minimalist décor. Once-teeming rooms are deserted. Tables formerly piled with papers are clear and there isn’t a computer in sight.
The quiet, though, is deceptive. The referendum is over, but Forever Canadian will go on. Lukaszuk is determined not to let the energy from events like the one at the Expo Centre dissipate.
In fact, he hopes what he now calls a movement will offer a new model for politics in Canada, one that combines old-fashioned hand-shaking, beer-sipping, heart-to-hearts with artificial intelligence and social media used to bring people together instead of drive them apart.
“I think Forever Canadian has shown Albertans that politics doesn’t have to be partisan,” he said. “Albertans are not right-wing or left-wing. They have both wings. They’re the whole chicken.”
A Campaign Built On Conversations
This, of course, is a familiar observation. University of Alberta research suggests on most issues, opinion in the province doesn’t veer that much from the national average. Pollsters find that on a left-right scale from one to 10, Albertans average a politely conservative six. But when Lukaszuk says it, it carries the weight of experience.
“I think I have met personally more people than any political candidate ever has in running for office,” he said. Over 18 months – perhaps the longest campaign in Canadian political history – Lukaszuk’s Unity Bus racked up 40,000 kilometres, from Peerless Lake First Nation in the north to Coutts on the U.S. border.
That odyssey on the Unity Bus was very different from his experience as a provincial cabinet minister.
“My experience prior to this campaign was very superficial,” Lukazsuk said. “You fly in on a government airplane to a little town, meet with city council, have lunch, fly back to the legislature. When you’re in office, people are not always as open and honest with you as they could be. (The Unity Bus) was a very organic, raw experience. I would drive in, no staffers, and meet with anybody who cared to come up and say hello. People of all political views were coming up. I could spend several hours in each town, go to a local diner, sleep in a local campground, drink beer with people I never met and will probably never meet again. People were very open about their politics because it was a safe space. This wasn’t the conservative bus or the liberal bus. This was the Forever Canadian bus.”
“We had people of all political backgrounds working together, showing that we actually can work together,” Lukaszuk said. From the start, he had help from people as diverse as Ian McClelland, a co-founder of the old Reform Party, former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan and onetime provincial New Democrat leader Brian Mason. And before long, he had a small army of 18,000 volunteers helping out and hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend. Now, with the referendum done and dusted, that’s a lot of non-partisan money and energy looking for a place to go.
What Comes Next For Forever Canadian
Lukaszuk has a few ideas on that. Firstly, the organization will remain vigilant for the return of a second referendum. Although Premier Danielle Smith has promised she won’t start one, Lukaszuk notes her government has lowered the bar for private citizens to initiate such a vote and the separatists haven’t gone away.
“I think the possibility of one is greater than not having one,” Lukaszuk said.
But he has bigger things in mind. The country needs to know itself better, he said.
“Lack of understanding among the provinces of each other and each other’s economies is a problem. When I spoke to the Economic Club of Canada – Bay Street, essentially – I was astonished how little they know about how integrated Alberta’s economy is with Ontario’s.”
Forever Canadian is already talking about that work with think tanks such as the Canada West Foundation. The Pembina Institute has reached out. So has the Manning Centre for Building Democracy. Lukaszuk muses about the need for better civics education to give Canadians a better understanding of Canadian history, governance and its role in the world. He’s pushing for a national curriculum review and has already met with the Alberta Educators Society to that end.
Using Technology To Bring People Together
Forever Canadian’s most powerful legacy may flow from how it conducted its voter campaign.
Lukaszuk recalls how difficult it was at first for the group’s volunteers to keep in touch with each. Text messages were secure, but unwieldy for thousands of people. Facebook sites were better, but prone to disruptive infiltration by separatists.
So Forever Canadian created its own Facebook-like site, restricted to members. That site remains active. “Right now there are several thousand of them talking to each other on our private Facebook, because they found each other,” Lukaszuk said. “Especially in rural Alberta. Those are the biggest users of our platform. It’s a safe space.”
It wasn’t Forever Canadian’s only forward-thinking use of technology.
The group trained an artificial intelligence program to answer the thousands of email questions it was getting – which otherwise would have taken dozens of staffers and scarce resources. They used AI demographic analysis to find the best sites for collecting petition signatures. AI told them, for example, to stop going to hockey games but keep attending football.
They used AI to plan the most efficient route for the Unity Bus, one that would not only hit the most communities with the fewest kilometres, but would also line up with community events – say, the Smoky Lake Pumpkin Festival. And to get people to the polls, Forever Canadian stood up its own province-wide ride-sharing service, a sort of bespoke Uber for patriots.
But it’s the online communication that Lukaszuk likes to talk about most. Forever Canadian may have become the antidote to the toxic polarization of today’s Alberta politics.
“We created a community in Alberta,” Lukaszuk said. “It became a movement.”
A Possible Return To Politics
For now, Lukaszuk plans to return to his financial business. He doesn’t rule out a return to politics, but he’s clear about what that decision would take.
“Only if the necessity requires,” he said. “I would have to be at a point that is exactly the same as I was in June 2025 when I knew that separatists were going to file a petition. I looked around. Nobody else was stepping up. When I called people around, they said not interested. Then I knew I had to do it. If I am to enter politics, it will probably happen under much the same circumstances.”
Lukasuk acknowledges that he and Carney see eye-to-eye on a lot of things.
“I get along with him exceptionally well,” he said. “I think he is the first Prime Minister in a long time who understands Canada’s role in the world and what a big role Canada can play. I come from a perspective that if the call comes to serve you country, you serve your country. If a prime minister calls you and says, I need you to do this, then you don’t ask why, you just say when.”
Forever Canadian may already be considering a move into electoral politics. A few days after the referendum, Forever Canadian circulated a survey to supporters. It asked what the group should do next, such as producing podcasts, developing educational materials, building an online community or simply planning for next year’s 160th Canada Day.
It asked if respondents would vote for candidates approved by Forever Canadian; it also probed whether the group should get more involved in politics and whether Alberta needs a new political party, asking further if respondents would join it, donate to it or volunteer for it.
But wherever Lukaszuk goes and whatever the movement he created does, the lessons he learned from Forever Canadian will stick.
“Forever Canadian has shown Albertans that politics doesn’t have to be partisan,” Lukaszuk said. He scorns leaders who gin up support by pointing to a bad guy who is the source of all problems. “That’s lazy politics,” he said.
Over and over, said Lukaszuk, people thanked him for his approach. “ ‘Thank you for giving us our voice back’ – I must have heard that a thousand times. I would always say you always had your voice, you just chose not to use it. They said no, no, no. We needed something like this to bring us together and give us our voice back.”
Forever Canadian’s offices are now closed. The group that arguably saved the country has left its digs in the remote, light-industrial no-man’s-land of northwest Edmonton. Its new headquarters will be in the city’s 124th street area, a lively neighbourhood of cafes, galleries, and small business just off downtown. It will be, appropriately, in the centre.