Alberta separatists are entrenched in the United Conservative Party
Pro-Canada Conservatives need to speak up now before it's too late
Premier Danielle Smith deflected criticism about a senior United Conservative Party Caucus staffer attending an online meeting of the separatist Centurion Project by blaming Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi for not telling her about the separatist group's use of a leaked voter list.
Nenshi has been taking daily swings at the UCP all week starting with claims that party president Rob Smith and Caucus Director of Stakeholder Relations Arundeep Sandhu attended the Centurion Project meeting where former premier Jason Kenney's home address was shown in a demonstration of the separatist group's app.
The UCP denied that the party president was at the meeting but admitted Sandhu logged into the zoom call.
Nenshi says he notified Kenney and the RCMP of the privacy breach and that the presence of Smith's senior staffer means she can't claim she didn't know that the voters list had been leaked.
The NDP hasn’t released the full video of the separatist zoom meeting so it’s unclear if participants would have known the Centurion Project app was illegally using the voters list, but the demo displaying Kenney’s home address should have raised big red flags.
It raises serious questions about who knew what when that should be investigated by a real public inquiry. Focusing on the one staffer makes sense for an opposition party trying to pin down the Premier on an issue that is becoming more difficult for her to dodge — but it misses the forest for the trees.
I am willing to bet that most of the people on the Centurion Project zoom call are now or were until recently card-carrying UCP members — and that’s the bigger story.
The separatist movement, with all its raucous factions, is deeply entrenched in Smith’s United Conservative Party and they aren’t going anywhere soon.
Danielle Smith making her separatist problem our provincial problem
Jen Gerson penned an excellent op-ed in the Globe & Mail arguing that the biggest privacy breach of personal information in Alberta’s history presents Smith with a perfect opportunity to sever her party’s separatist wing (92 per cent of Alberta separatists are UCP supporters). Gerson is right that it is an opening for Smith but it might be politically impossible without tearing the UCP apart — something Smith won’t want to do.
Gerson argued forcefully on Ryan Jespersen’s Real Talk that Smith is making her political problem our provincial problem.
Many of the UCP’s most enthusiastic political activists, the ones who show up to constituency meetings and policy conventions, have also spent the past three months collecting signatures for the Stay Free Alberta citizen initiative to force a referendum on Alberta’s independence from Canada.
Many of those same activists cut their political teeth organizing opposition to COVID-19 public health measures and vaccinations, and embrace and promote the deep well of online conspiracy theories associated with that movement.
They helped topple Kenney in May 2022 and swept Danielle Smith into the Premier’s Office in October 2022. And during every moment in between they have been organizing on the ground through travelling town halls and convoy roadshows — putting them in a strong position to launch the separation petition, which they submitted to Elections Alberta earlier this week.
Polls show that a majority of UCP voters support Alberta separatism but that still only represents less than 30 per cent of Albertans. Yet, Albertans are almost certainly going to be forced to the polls in October 19, 2026 to vote on the question of Alberta leaving Canada.
Groups like the Alberta Prosperity Project, Stay Free Alberta, Take Back Alberta, 1905 Committee and others, operate both inside and outside the UCP. Many of their leaders and prominent supporters hold positions within the governing party at the provincial and constituency levels.
Alberta Prosperity Project CEO and Stay Free Alberta petition leader Mitch Sylvestre is President of the UCP constituency association in the Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul riding. He was awarded the Best Fundraiser Award at the party’s annual general meeting last November.
Separatist spokesperson and lawyer Jeff Rath is a UCP member and received a standing ovation when he challenged Smith at the UCP AGM.
Benita Pedersen appeared to be the MC at a Centurion Project meeting in Edmonton and has been a prominent activist in groups opposed to COVID-19 public health measures and vaccinations. She is the President of the UCP association in St. Albert and is facing a human rights complaint at the Alberta Human Rights Commission.
UCP Vice President of Communications and Central Peace-Notley UCP constituency president Samantha Steinke posed for a photo with a group that included Sylvestre and Rath at the separatist petition rally outside the Elections Alberta offices this week. She was one of the candidates endorsed by Sylvestre’s APP during last year’s UCP board elections.
Red Deer-South UCP MLA Jason Stephan has been openly cheerleading the separatist petition drive. Stephan is Smith’s handpicked Parliamentary Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, though it appears he was given the role as a platform to promote his opposition to French as an official language and support for abolishing the monarchy.
Former Wildrose Independence Party leader Jeevan Mangat is the President of the UCP constituency association in Calgary-Acadia and is planning to run for UCP nomination the riding. He was a spokesperson for the Rally for Alberta Independence that took place at the Legislature in March 2025.
Other prominent Alberta separatists pepper UCP constituency association boards across the province, like former board director Vince Byfield who is President of the UCP association in Edmonton-South West.
Smith has bent over backward to make it easier for supporters of Alberta independence to hold the referendum by lowering the threshold to trigger a referendum and shielding their referendum question from constitutional challenges.
Smith also introduced a suite of nine other referendum questions that appear designed to boost turnout and slant the narrative towards the separatists. Perhaps she believes she can control the separatist-wing of her party but there isn’t much evidence that they can be controlled, even by a skilled politician like Smith.
As I’ve written before, previous Conservative party premiers like Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein succeeded in marginalizing separatists because they mostly existed in smaller right-wing parties on the political fringes, not inside the governing party.
While we haven’t seen much push back from pro-Canada conservatives inside the UCP, there have been some pockets of resistance to the separatist takeover.
Party members replaced a pro-separation constituency association board in Sherwood Park last year that was led by led by a former Wexit group leader. But the big gains made by separatist-endorsed candidates at the party’s board elections last November suggest the anti-separatist sentiment might be a localized feature within the UCP ranks.
Kenney has been outspoken in his opposition to separation, but it’s fair to say that his political base in Alberta is much much smaller than it was when the UCP romped to its first election win in 2019.
Alberta remaining part of Canada is such a divisive issue in the UCP that the party’s MLAs are doing everything they can to avoid a vote in the Legislature. And that is after the question, “Do you agree Alberta should remain in Canada?,” was endorsed by more than 456,000 Albertans who signed the pro-Canada Forever Canadian petition.
Separatist leader threatens nomination challenges against UCP MLAs
Rath appeared to threaten to launch nomination challenges against any UCP MLAs who opposed Alberta separatism:
IF YOU SUPPORT INDEPENDENCE PLEASE BUY A UCP MEMBERSHIP!
Let @ABDanielleSmith know that WE ARE THE UCP BASE.
No UCP MLA SHOULD BE NOMINATED UNLESS THEIR SUPPORT OF ALBERTA INDEPENDENCE MIRRORS THE WISHES OF THEIR CONSTITUENTS!
It is probably not surprising that one UCP MLA is already planning to resign and a growing number of UCP cabinet ministers are rumoured to be considering not seeking re-election in 2027 (which is also leading to rumours of a spring cabinet shuffle).
The key takeaway from this is that the separatism debate won’t end with a referendum.
Alberta separation policy proposed for UCP AGM
There is already a motion being proposed to adopt separatism as an official party policy at the UCP’s fall AGM.
A divisive policy debate about separatism was narrowly avoided by a vote by the UCP’s provincial board before separatist-endorsed candidates swept the majority of the party’s board positions at year’s AGM in Edmonton.
Emmott Kelsey of the Centurion Project is a UCP member and has submitted a policy resolution for debate at the UCP AGM that would officially endorse Alberta leaving Canada. A screenshot Kelsey shared on social media showed the text of the policy resolution:
The United Conservative Party agrees that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state.
The resolutions need to be ranked by UCP members, and the party’s executive has the ability to intervene, but it’s hard to see the UCP avoiding this debate again or whether the party’s membership will allow it to be avoided.
Party president Rob Smith said earlier this year that a party vote on separation is a possibility.
Even if the separation referendum fails, as most polls today suggest it would, the UCP might still end up becoming an official separatist party by the end of 2026 if this policy resolution ends up being adopted.
If you are a UCP member who supports Alberta staying in Canada, now is your moment to speak up — or you may find yourself having to look for a new party in 2027.
New report finds Russian and Trump-aligned online disinformation campaigns targeting Alberta
The Globe & Mail reports that a study being released this week by the Global Centre for Democratic Resilience has identified Russian and Trump-aligned websites and social-media accounts that are being created to inflame the separatism debate in Alberta:
“The danger is not the existence of that debate. The danger is that foreign governments, state-aligned media, ideological networks, and profit-driven manipulation systems are seeking to distort it,” the report concludes.
“When external actors amplify separatist narratives, normalize annexation, encourage national rupture, or undermine confidence in democratic processes, the issue is no longer only a matter of provincial politics. It becomes a direct threat to Canada’s democratic integrity, national security, and cognitive sovereignty.”
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Dave
The connection between the UCP and the separatists is nothing new. It's been documented many times, including here. What is new is that Danielle Smith can no longer pretend it doesn't exist. The focus of the NDP is exactly where it should be regarding the leak of the Voters List- on what Smith knew and when she knew it. Why do you think she's desperately avoiding the questions and laughably trying to deflect the issue onto Neshi? If she or her officials did know about the leak weeks ago and did nothing about it in order to provide cover to the separatists it means they have deliberately compromised Albertans personal and private information for narrow political interests. That's something they'll find it hard to forgive.
With all the talk about/against Alberta separation, and focus on the players, the name consistently absent is ROB ANDERSON!! I think more investigation on what this player is about, his history with both Danielle Smith and the UCP is absolutely necessary. From my reading and information, he is at the root of UCP aspirations and has a talent for remaining in the background and manipulating everything. That nobody’s mentioning him speaks to that talent. Expose the puppeteer please Daveberta! Thank you.