Standing room-only crowds lined the Alberta legislature pool and fountain Saturday as the exit-Alberta crowd showed up in a sea of blue flags and Leave-Canada T-shirts.
They were there at the invite of the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), which filed a petition seeking a referendum question asking if Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada and become an independent state.
Two anti-protest protesters were quickly hustled off the stage by security after a brief effort to interrupt the rally.
Alberta sheriffs take a protester away after interrupting a separatists rally at the Alberta legislature ahead of festivities marking the province’s 121st birthday. Taken on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026, in Edmonton. Greg Southam-Postmedia
There’s seven weeks to go until the province’s Oct. 19 separation referendum. Premier Danielle Smith is asking Albertans if the province should remain in Canada or hold a binding referendum on leaving the country.
She said she is voting to stay but Albertans want to be heard after thousands signed separate competing for separation or remaining part of Canada.
Separatist leader Jeffrey Rath, set to speak at the rally, has accused Smith of failing to protect Alberta sovereignty and kowtowing to Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Smith, expected to speak in Calgary Sunday, has mused about calling a binding referendum as early as spring but Alberta’s general election is to be held in October which may delay timing.
APP leader Mitch Sylvestre addressed the topic.
“This future election thing, everybody says, and we’ll just address it for a minute, what’s going to happen with that? Well, we still have a legal petition that should trigger a question on its own — that hasn’t gone away,” Sylvestre said.
He got applause and a few raised Alberta Republic flag-adorned hockey sticks when he reminisced about the Bonneville Pontiac jersey he wore for 14 years, when he played senior hockey. He declared Carney’s “elbows up!” mantra “nonsense.”
“You put your elbows up to protect yourself from the other side, so Ottawa is putting its elbows up to protect themselves from us, and I think that’s backwards,” said Sylvestre, president of the UCP’s Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul Constituency Association and the man who took Stay Free Alberta past the signature threshold required to trigger a referendum for independence.
‘Hearts that bleed for Alberta’
Sylvestre asked Pastor Jeff Harms to open the event in prayer, “as we do with all of our events.”
“We all upon you today with hearts that bleed for Alberta just as your heart bleeds for us,” Harms prayed.
“And this is our task in our province: justice for Albertans, for her widows, her veterans, her orphans, her poor, and all who remain under the hands of oppression. Provide for us the wisdom and leadership needed as we seek your justice in this province.”
You could count on one hand the number of Canadian flags among the packed crowd. That includes the legislature itself, where the Alberta flag flew alone and the Maple Leaf was absent.
Yellowknife resident Jack Schauerte attended with a Make Alberta Great Again shirt.
A big fan of U.S. President Donald Trump, Schauerte hopes the province will be its own country when he moves to Edmonton next year.
“Americans are so lucky to have him, and Canadians only wish they could have our leaders were as good as doing our leaders were doing as good for us as Trump is doing for Americans,” he said.
“It turns out now that Canada is the only country left in the world that doesn’t have a trade deal with America,” he said.
He’d rather see Alberta be a republic than a state, Schauerte said.
“As far as Alberta becoming a state, there’s so many hoops and hurdles to jump through that I doubt it would ever happen,” he said.
‘What this country is about’
Federalist supporter Monica Bottomley took in the rally.
“We want to see what they’re up to, how many of them there are, and hear what they’re saying to each other, and also represent the people that are actually not in support of separation, which is the majority of Albertans,” Bottomley said.
Clad in a Canadian flag Spider-Man-style suit head to foot, a fellow identified only as “Canada Guy” said he’s in favour of separatists being able to express their charter rights.
“Oh, I love it. This is what this country is about,” he said.
And separatism? How did he feel about that?
“Absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. It’ll tank us, our economy, our culture, our everything. It’ll be gone,” he said.
Robin Day of Edmonton said Albertans have “tried everything.”
Other than a successful effort to get natural resources transferred to the province in the 1930s, he said, “there’s never been a successful attempt to get equal treatment in terms of representation in government, in Parliament or the Senate, and every time a government in Alberta has approached Ottawa to have discussions on fair treatment, they’ve been rebuffed or not responded to,” Day said, citing Preston Manning’s “Alberta Wants In” campaign.
“I think our only option is Alberta wants out now,” Day said.
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