The goal is to create a society that is deeply conservative, Christian nationalist, authoritarian libertarian, and unlike the rest of Canada
The activists leading Alberta’s separatist movement are drawing on the organizations, tactics and worldview developed during opposition to COVID-19 public-health restrictions, says Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt.
In an interview with Energi Media (see below), Bratt said the connection involves much more than familiar personalities moving from one political cause to another. The two movements share a populist structure built around anger, distrust of institutions, rejection of expertise and the promise of simple solutions to complex problems.
Prominent separatist organizers emerged during the pandemic fight. Bratt pointed to figures including David Parker, Mitch Sylvestre, Chris Scott and Jeff Rath, along with alternative outlets such as Rebel News and the Western Standard. Their political skills, audiences and networks did not disappear when health restrictions ended. They were redirected toward Alberta independence.
Bratt said many people had legitimate questions about school closures, masking, vaccination and other measures that disrupted their lives. His argument concerns a smaller group of activists and influencers who remain angry across issues and help maintain that anger among supporters.
That intensity matters politically. Support for separation remains a minority position, but its strongest advocates are highly motivated and exert influence inside the United Conservative Party.
The party was divided over COVID restrictions while Jason Kenney was premier. Kenney’s attempt to balance competing factions contributed to his removal and the rise of Danielle Smith, who aligned herself with opponents of the restrictions. Bratt said Smith now faces a similar balancing problem over separatism because the UCP is not formally separatist but contains a powerful separatist faction.
The common worldview is visible in the movement’s treatment of rights and freedoms, Bratt said. Pandemic opponents often framed masking and vaccination solely as violations of individual liberty, without acknowledging the rights of others to protection from disease. Separatists apply a similar logic when they demand Alberta’s right to leave Canada while discounting Indigenous treaty rights and other constitutional obligations.
Courts that upheld reasonable limits on individual rights during the pandemic were attacked as unelected and unaccountable. Similar attacks followed court decisions that rejected separatist petition questions because they conflicted with Indigenous and treaty rights.
Bratt also identified a parallel information system. Distrust of the CBC has expanded to CTV, Global, the Globe and Mail, Postmedia and other established organizations. In their place, supporters increasingly rely on smaller alternative outlets and podcasts that often combine commentary, activism and fundraising around a single ideological position.
Those outlets can create an echo chamber in which audiences encounter the same message repeatedly, Bratt said. He distinguished that model from traditional news organizations that separate reporting from opinion and expose audiences to competing perspectives.
The deeper concern is hostility toward democratic institutions and expertise. Bratt said hard-core separatist rhetoric increasingly extends beyond changing Alberta’s constitutional status to redesigning the province’s political system. Some supporters question whether political opponents, residents of equalization-receiving provinces or people receiving public pensions should have equal voting rights.
Bratt cautioned that not every Albertan considering a vote for separation shares that anti-democratic vision. Some remain motivated by economic or constitutional grievances. But the movement’s most influential organizers often describe a new Alberta with few details about how dissent, minority rights or political competition would be protected.
The same rejection of expertise appeared during the pandemic, when online research was treated as equivalent to medical training. Bratt said separatists similarly dismiss political scientists, historians, economists and constitutional lawyers who study secession, fiscal transfers, treaty rights and investment risk.
He expects the movement to survive even if Albertans vote to remain in Canada. The organizations and emotional energy created during the pandemic have already demonstrated their ability to migrate from one issue to another.
Bratt said democratic societies should distinguish between people with honest questions and actors who repeatedly operate in bad faith. Free expression does not require every claim to be treated as equally credible. Evidence remains the standard for deciding which ideas deserve influence.
The central lesson, he said, is to recognize the recurring pattern. When the same people move from cause to cause while repeating the same attacks on expertise, institutions and democratic limits, the organizing principle is no longer the issue itself. It is the worldview beneath it.
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