{"id":714243,"date":"2026-06-04T09:43:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T09:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714243\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T09:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T09:43:13","slug":"alberta-premier-warns-separation-could-cost-400b-separatists-economists-and-brexit-scholars-have-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714243\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta premier warns separation could cost $400B. Separatists, economists and Brexit scholars have thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost $400 billion of transitional costs, plus somewhere in the neighbourhood of $25 billion to $50 billion in annual costs. <\/p>\n

That was Alberta Premier Danielle Smith\u2019s early estimate of the price tag facing her province should it separate from Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s responsible for us to be very forthright about the cost associated with what is being proposed, so people can make an informed decision,\u201d Smith said Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contained within the estimate? What Smith called a long \u201claundry list\u201d that runs the gamut from Alberta\u2019s share of the national debt \u2014 about $170 billion, with about $10 billion a year in interest, in her estimation \u2014 to costs tied to border control, tariffs and NATO.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Smith says she asked Carney to ‘work with me’ to lower Alberta’s separatist sentiment:\"\"<\/p>\n

Smith says she asked Carney to ‘work with me’ to lower Alberta’s separatist sentiment<\/p>\n

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she told Prime Minister Mark Carney ‘we have a very serious problem’ with her province’s separatist movement during Carney’s early days in office. ‘There were legitimate issues in Alberta that caused people to lose hope in Canada,’ Smith said. ‘The prime minister and I together decided that we were going to work to address them.’<\/p>\n

A full costing document has been promised, potentially to be delivered by August, and is currently being prepared by Finance Minister Jason Nixon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to take some time with it,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe want it out in time for people to have enough time to digest it before the vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there are significant startup costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AJeffrey Rath is pictured as signatures are submitted for a separation referendum to Elections Alberta in Edmonton on May 4. (Jason Franson\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

That estimate is \u201cinsane\u201d in the eyes of Jeffrey Rath, the chief lawyer for Stay Free Alberta.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just trying to terrify Albertans into not wanting to leave,\u201d Rath said.<\/p>\n

The Alberta Prosperity Project, the group behind Stay Free Alberta, released its own costed fiscal plan in July 2025, which it calls the Value of Freedom.<\/p>\n

The document looks at the cost of setting up armed forces, immigration and deportation systems, a postal service, airports, policing and national parks, among other necessities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The transition number it came up with was approximately $6 billion, Rath said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this is the best argument that the federalist Dani Smith can come up with, she better get back to the drawing board, because it’s not an argument at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 19, Albertans will head to the polls to vote on a number of referendum questions. Among them, whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada or whether the provincial government should begin the process to hold a referendum on separation.<\/p>\n

Trade costs, Brexit comparisons<\/p>\n

In discussing the government\u2019s forthcoming document, Smith mentioned that she thought University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe had already done some \u201cback-of-the-envelope\u201d calculations.<\/p>\n

Tombe told CBC News he hasn\u2019t done work on setup costs to date. Tombe is part<\/a> of the federalist group Lead Not Leave.<\/p>\n

His research from July 2025 had suggested higher trade barriers following separation could reduce Alberta’s economy by about six per cent or roughly $30 billion per year in overall income generated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also pointed to the United Kingdom’s experience following Brexit, where investment levels remain significantly below where they otherwise would have been.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WATCH | Former British Conservative politician weighs in on Carney comparing Alberta referendum to Brexit:\"\"<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney compares Alberta referendum to Brexit | Hanomansing Tonight<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney says that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s recently announced separatist referendum question is \u2018not helpful,\u2019 warning it could backfire as it has elsewhere, such as the United Kingdom with Brexit.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrexit was significantly easier than what Alberta leaving Canada would entail,\u201d Tombe said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so any of the costs around what the United Kingdom has experienced should be viewed as a substantial underestimate of the potential costs and challenges that Alberta would face leaving Confederation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the British government\u2019s estimate of the cost of leaving Europe \u2014 pegged at roughly \u00a34,300-a-year per family by 2030 \u2014 was one of the most contentious<\/a> and scrutinized elements of the heated Brexit debate in 2016.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No doubt Canadians will be watching closely to see what number Nixon calculates for the cost of Alberta separation later this summer.<\/p>\n

\"PeopleBrexit supporters celebrate during a rally outside Stormont in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 2020. (Peter Morrison\/Associated Press)<\/p>\n

A British economist, meanwhile, told CBC News that Alberta\u2019s separation discussions remind him of Scotland\u2019s 2014 failed referendum seeking independence from the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus was much more on these costs \u2026 of actually separating and that seems to me a much more direct analogy with what you’re talking about in Alberta,\u201d said Jonathan Portes, professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London and a senior fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe think tank.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough you probably ought to be talking about the potential trade costs as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Portes noted that unlike Brexit, the secession vote in Scotland lost and thus economists were not able to observe its real-world effects.<\/p>\n

But analyses suggested that the process would have been difficult, especially when it came to dividing responsibilities for taxes, pensions and other benefits, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are areas where either side could reasonably argue different positions on the allocation of cost of benefits,\u201d Portes said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd hence, since it\u2019s not simple or obvious, you\u2019re setting yourself up for some long and complicated and possibly quite bitter arguments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Setting up a panel<\/p>\n

Nixon, Alberta\u2019s newly appointed finance minister, has said he\u2019ll turn to outside experts to help inform the provincial government\u2019s report on the costs of leaving Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lennie Kaplan, a former Alberta Finance official, has some experience in such matters. He was the executive director of the MacKinnon Report on Alberta\u2019s Finances in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, he drew up some recommendations on how a panel focused on measuring the economic and fiscal impacts of Alberta independence could function.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy using an expert panel, I think you maybe defuse some of the conflict,\u201d Kaplan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving it outside the scope of government by having government staff available to provide assistance, to run shock analysis or answer questions, provide data, et cetera, I think that\u2019s a useful template. And that\u2019s what we used with the MacKinnon Panel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AThe MacKinnon Report on Alberta\u2019s Finances was released in September 2019. (Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

That panel should consist of independent and impartial experts tasked with contrasting the government and the separatist estimates, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It should assess national debt and assets, setting up new federal-style institutions like a tax agency and a central bank, he said, replacing major social programs and pensions, and modelling the economic impact of potential trade barriers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All told, it should provide Albertans with a comprehensive study, Kaplan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlbertans can judge for themselves whether moving toward some sort of independent state or remaining within Canada under some maybe different fiscal arrangements would be a better alternative,\u201d Kaplan said.<\/p>\n

Rath, meanwhile, isn\u2019t convinced about the merits of Smith\u2019s efforts to engage Nixon on the file.<\/p>\n

\u201c[They will] come up with more silly numbers to try to scare Albertans into not wanting to leave Canada. You know, I think it just further undermines her credibility,\u201d Rath said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost $400 billion of transitional costs, plus somewhere in the neighbourhood of $25 billion to $50 billion in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-714243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}