O n May 21, 2024, conservative Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid wrote that Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) is “building its sovereign Alberta in a way no government has done before . . . laying the foundations brick by brick, from the ground up, preparing the province, Quebec-like, for the fullest degree of independence possible.”
Separatist sentiment has always bubbled below the surface in rural Alberta, coming to the fore when there’s a Liberal government in Ottawa, which every Alberta premier must be prepared to contend with. But no premier has gone further in legitimizing their grievances and advancing their agenda than Smith.
For the separatist set, Trump was both a model for emulation and a potential liberator from the meagre constraints Canadian federalism has placed on fossil fuel extraction and the exercise of executive power. More than any other Canadian leader, Smith’s policies were influenced by Trump, his Make America Great Again movement, and its allies. Soon after Trump’s election, Smith met with officials of the Heritage Foundation, the powerful conservative US think tank, “to see if we could frame our interests and talking points in terms of the US president’s interests.”
The foundation was behind Project 2025, a blueprint for expanding presidential power and remaking the federal government. The Free Alberta Strategy, co-authored by Rob Anderson—Smith’s 2022 campaign chair and later executive director of the premier’s office—has been likened to that playbook.
Though much shorter and narrower in scope, it provided a similar guidebook for Smith’s dismantling of state institutions and building new ones loyal to the ruling party. Its proposals included refusing to enforce federal laws that conflict with provincial prerogatives; creating a provincial police force, pension plan, revenue agency, and banks; and seizing control over judicial appointments.
Once Trump began threatening Canada with punishing tariffs and speaking openly of integrating his northern neighbour into the United States, Smith took a far more obsequious approach to him than any other premier, becoming a prominent voice in far-right US political circles by ingratiating herself to Trump and his allies.
A strong indication that Trump’s second presidency would depart from relative normalcy came when the president-elect began speaking of incorporating Canada into the US. After threatening to impose 25 percent tariffs on both Canada and Mexico if they didn’t impose measures to stop the flow of migrants and drugs across their borders, Trump soon moved to publicly mocking “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.”
Smith used the opportunity of Trump’s threats to give Alberta Sheriffs $29 million to patrol the “leaky” Alberta–Montana border, advancing her plans for an independent Alberta police force as Trudeau introduced his own $1.3 billion border militarization plan.
As Trump’s January 20, 2025, inauguration approached, Smith travelled to Mar-a-Lago upon the invitation of celebrity businessman Kevin O’Leary for a “friendly and constructive conversation” with Trump.
Smith’s Mar-a-Lago jaunt, for which she was accompanied by chief of staff Rob Anderson, principal secretary Becca Polak, and Alberta’s senior representative to the US James Rajotte, cost the public more than $10,000, almost a third of which consisted of Anderson’s flight home. On social media, Anderson claimed that he has a rare blood condition, Factor V Leiden, which requires him to fly business class on flights over three hours so he can keep his feet upright to avoid a potentially “fatal embolism or stroke.”
Smith told the CBC that she, Anderson, and Pollak happened to be in the Dominican Republic for Anderson’s wedding, so it made sense to use the opportunity to travel to Florida and meet with the incoming president. Smith said her $10,000 question for Trump was, “Do you want to buy more oil and gas from Canada? And he said yes.”
The premier skipped out on a January 15 first ministers’ meeting in Ottawa to fly to Panama, where her husband, David Moretta, had purchased a beachside property on the southeastern tip of the Azuero Peninsula from Israeli businessman Roy Caduri in August 2023 for $310,000 (US). Attending the meeting virtually, she refused to sign onto a joint statement from the prime minister and other premiers promising retaliation for Trump’s tariffs, which she explained was because they wouldn’t rule out export taxes on Canadian oil and gas.
After meeting with a group of Republican senators in Washington, DC, Smith unveiled a plan to “preserve and strengthen our economic and security partnership with the United States, and to avoid the future imposition of tariffs.” Measures included the revocation of “all federal anti-energy policies” and revival of the cancelled Northern Gateway and Energy East pipelines, a “crackdown on immigration streams and loopholes that are known to permit individuals hostile to Canada and the United States to enter our country,” and a “major acceleration” in military spending.
The premier’s proximity to the MAGA movement caught the attention of Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, who remains an influential figure among his supporters. In an interview with Global News, Bannon said that Canadians “don’t really have an option” but to become part of the US, because Canada is ill-prepared for an impending “great power competition” in the Arctic between the US, Russia, and China. Bannon cited Smith as one of the western Canadian leaders who “really get it.”
In a November 15, 2025, interview on Bannon’s popular War Room podcast, conservative geopolitical analyst Brandon Weichert described Alberta as the “linchpin” of Trump’s plans for hemispheric dominance. “When Trump says, ‘Canada’s becoming the fifty-first state,’ he’s really talking about Alberta.”
University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper, who serves as the leading intellectual of the separatist movement, told me that Smith has done well “articulating Alberta’s interests” without endorsing separatism, but that “circumstances, particularly with the current federal government, will make her current positions resolvable only with a greater attention to the independence option.” “It will take some help from the Americans, but I’m sure they’ll be happy to help us out,” he added casually.
What sort of help? “The army,” Cooper chuckled. Once Alberta rids itself of the RCMP, he explained, the only remaining armed entities loyal to the Canadian state will be 5,000 Canadian Armed Forces members at the Edmonton Garrison in Sturgeon County; fewer than 2,000 at CFB Cold Lake, an air force base in the north that flies old F-18s; and a few hundred at CFB Suffield in southeastern Alberta, which is mostly used by British soldiers.
This doesn’t mean the Montana National Guard would need to occupy the province, Cooper emphasized. “We are so subordinate to the United States in military affairs that it wouldn’t take anything more than a quiet word,” he said. Canada is already functionally a vassal of US empire, but Alberta separatists seek deeper integration.
An Alberta Prosperity Project delegation travelled to Washington, DC, to meet state department officials three times in 2025 to secure diplomatic support for Alberta independence. In a Christmas Eve 2025 interview with Rachel Parker, spouse of Take Back Alberta leader David Parker, on her eponymous YouTube show, Jeffrey Rath claimed he’s in “weekly” contact with “senior officials” who have a direct line to the Oval Office. “The one thing that we all fervently believe,” he added, “is that the landlocking of Alberta’s resources is being done by Ottawa at the behest of the Communist Chinese.”
Rath said the APP is attempting to secure a $500 billion line of credit from the Americans in the event of a referendum victory. In a March 5, 2025, appearance on Parker’s channel, as Rath was preparing the APP’s first delegation to the US, he said one of their aims was to “gauge their support for Alberta either becoming a US territory or a US state,” with his preference being a status similar to Guam or Puerto Rico, which don’t pay federal taxes. Within less than a year, Rath would claim that the idea of joining the US was “out of left field” and “off the table.”
When these meetings made international headlines, British Columbia premier David Eby accused the separatists of “treason.” Cooper shares this characterization. “What we’re talking about here is called treason, and if you’re not willing to face that, then you’re not serious about independence.” Meanwhile, Dennis Modry of the APP claims that Smith has privately expressed interest in being the prime minister of an independent Alberta. If Smith indeed said this, it doesn’t make her a committed separatist; it makes her a committed self-preservationist.
Adapted, with permission, from Dark Phoenix: The Rise, Fall, and Re-emergence of Danielle Smith by Jeremy Appel, published by Dundurn Press, 2026.
Jeremy Appel is an independent journalist covering Alberta politics and author of Kenneyism: Jason Kenney’s Pursuit of Power. He lives in Edmonton.