Quashing Alberta separatism debate could spark fireworks at UCP AGM
Danielle Smith's pipeline deal with Mark Carney could get more jeers than cheers by some at the UCP AGM
A quick note before today’s column: If you haven’t already, be sure to vote in the Best of Alberta Politics 2025 Survey.
The United Conservative Party’s most dedicated activists and supporters will gather in Edmonton on November 28, 29 and 30 to debate a swath of policy resolutions and elect members of its provincial board at the party’s annual general meeting.
Since the UCP was founded in 2017, the party’s AGM has become one of the most interesting and closely-watched political events of the year. It’s an annual reminder the delegates attending the meeting — the UCP’s most enthusiastic activists — are as a group among the most influential people in Alberta politics today.
The AGM gives political observers a front row seat into the politics of the UCP and the populist anti-establishment online-driven politics that propels many of the party’s activists. A lot of the most active UCP partisans who will be at the AGM got their first taste of politics as opponents of COVID-19 public health measures and, unsurprisingly, many are strongly influenced by the radical politics and conspiracy theories pushed by President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement south of the border.
That activist base is well-organized and unafraid of toppling a party leader, as former Premier Jason Kenney discovered in 2022. That is the big reason why they get more attention paid to them by Premier Danielle Smith than any other premier has paid to a party’s membership in recent memory.
The UCP governs with its enthusiastic activist base of supporters in mind and it has been clearly reflected in recent government policies restricting access to vaccinations, banning electronic voting tabulators, banning books in school libraries, banning transgender health services and blocking transgender athletes from competing in sports.
This year’s list of policy resolutions being debated by UCP AGM delegates call on the government to force temporary residents to pay more for health care, cease public funding for third-trimester abortions, remove fluoride from tap water, ban non-official flags from government flagpoles, buy the Alberta operations of the RCMP, rescind net-zero policies, advocate for gun ownership to be moved under provincial jurisdiction, reintroduce coal-burning power plants, restrict drivers’ license tests to English or French only, and institute a new official Oath to Alberta.
But the biggest item missing from the debate is what has some UCP activists up in arms: Alberta’s separation from Canada.
“Danielle wanted lapdogs,” says influential separatist
According to influential separatist Jeffrey Rath, one of the main spokespeople for the Alberta Prosperity Project, the UCP board of directors is to blame for blocking a separation debate at the AGM. Rath has openly criticized incumbent UCP President Rob Smith for casting the deciding vote against holding a debate about Alberta independence. A debate and vote on Alberta’s separation from Canada could have received overwhelming support from AGM delegates — making the UCP an official separatist party.
“We are not a separatist party. We are not an independence party. We are a party that believes at this point in time that Alberta belongs in Canada,” Rob Smith told the Globe & Mail.
That board vote is what Rath says led him to endorse Darrell Komick’s challenge against Smith in this year’s presidential elections.
Komick is the President of the Calgary-Lougheed UCP association and has made news headlines as the organizer of town hall-style fundraisers featuring panelists promoting COVID-19 vaccine scepticism and Alberta separatism (his campaign also has a list of official “Alberta First” songs).
“We’re hoping that we have the votes to basically recapture the entire provincial board, but again, dirty tricks are afoot,” Rath said on the John Bolton podcast.
“Danielle [Smith] has paid organizers to oust pro-independence CAs and replace entire CA boards,” Rath said. “The literally just fired an entire board and president from Sherwood Park because they were pro-independence and you know Danielle wanted lapdogs in that constituency association.”
Rath doesn’t speak for all UCP delegates who will be at the AGM, but the APP has become an increasingly influential force inside the party as a result of the group travelling the province to hold town hall meetings promoting the separatist cause.
Rath has built a lot of political capital and spent some of it when he took to the internet last month to loudly encourage UCP AGM delegates to vote for Komick and an “Independence Slate” of board candidates.
Although I haven’t seen an official list of Rath’s slate, a handful of “grassroots” candidates for board positions were invited to join Komick’s virtual town hall hosted by Adam Soos of the COVID-19 conspiracy theory promoting website Canadians for Truth.
The “grassroots” candidates who were invited to join Komick included Vice-President Communications candidate Samantha Steinke, Vice-President Fundraising candidate Helen Holder, Secretary candidate Scott Payne, South regional director candidate Jodie Gateman, Calgary regional director candidate Irma Roberts, Central director candidate Al Biel, and North director Vicki Kozmak-LeFrense.
Steinke, Biel, and Kozmak-LeFrense were among six members of the UCP’s current board of directors spotted at the APP’s large independence rally at the Legislature on October 25.
Steinke is facing a re-election challenge from ministerial Chief of Staff Pamela Davidson, Biel is being challenged by Adam Doyle and Brian Golka, and Kozmak-LeFrense is facing Benjamin Gill in the board elections.
Black Hat Gang member Scott Payne is one of four candidates running for the Secretary position. He’s the son of former Medicine Hat Conservative MP LaVar Payne, who is a supporter of Alberta’s independence from Canada and has been involved with the separatist group calling itself the Commonwealth of Alberta Delegation to Washington DC.
The board elections could be an important test of just how influential separatist groups like the APP are among the UCP’s activists.
Premier Smith has so far successfully walked the precarious line between the group of Albertans who just want a better deal from Ottawa and the burgeoning separatist wing of the UCP who are openly calling for Alberta’s independence or joining the United States.
Smith knows she doesn’t control the delegates at the UCP AGM, per-se, but she has a good understanding of what makes her most enthusiastic supporter tick and has tried to use the Alberta Next panel to try to steer them away from an actual separation referendum — something that could shatter her party’s broader voter coalition.
Smith hopes pipeline deal with Carney will quell separatist sentiments
The release of a Memorandum of Understanding between Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney that signals the federal Liberal government’s support for the construction of another oil pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia and rolls back a host of Trudeau-era climate change targets will be a big topic of discussion at the UCP AGM.
“This is Canada working, this is co-operative federalism, this is Canada building with Alberta, Alberta building with Canada, building very much for the future,” Carney said at the announcement.
Smith was celebratory but careful to not sound like she was rolling out a big Mission Accomplished banner after the agreement was announced. Actually building an oil pipeline will be very difficult without the support of BC NDP Premier David Eby and many of the First Nations communities — not to mention the lack of a private corporation willing to pay for its construction. But this is still a significant political win for Smith, who can now cross some big items off the list of demands she made to Ottawa earlier this year.
Smith told reporters at her press conference in Calgary yesterday that she hoped this pipeline agreement would quell separatist sentiment in Alberta.
“I always felt that the former government of Justin Trudeau created the Independence movement and my first conversations with Prime Minister Mark Carney were that he could end it,” Smith said in response to a question from Global National’s Alberta correspondent Heather Yourex-West. “He could take the wind out of it.”
“We saw this once before. We saw that independence sentiment was very high in the early 1980s when there was the National Energy Program but when Brian Mulroney came in and reversed that policy it disappeared,” Smith said.
“I would say that good policy and genuinely addressing the concerns of Albertans is always a pathway to have a good and solid relationship and I think the Prime Minister understands that,” Smith said of the Edmonton-raised Carney.
Smith’s tone was quite different from earlier this year when she warned of an unprecedented national unity crisis if Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives failed to win the federal election.
Poilievre, who today leads the opposition as an MP from the Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, slammed the Smith-Carney pipeline agreement as a public relations stunt. The federal Conservative Party leader’s comments are a sign of a possible schism between two federal and provincial conservative parties that traditionally march in lockstep.
Smith will be able to walk into the UCP AGM this weekend triumphant about the pipeline deal, and maybe even confident enough to consider calling an early provincial election in 2026, but she may get more jeers than cheers from some sections of her party who will be unhappy she was willing to have truck and trade with Carney (though I can guarantee that Steven Guilbeault’s resignation will get cheers).
Former Progressive Conservative MLA Donna Kennedy-Glans penned in the National Post that pipeline won’t be enough to dampen separatist efforts inside the UCP, and I agree. Unlike the 1980s, when the separatist threat manifested into an opposition party that Peter Lougheed’s PCs were able to electorally quash, the separatist movement in 2025 is a force that is deeply intrenched inside of Smith’s UCP.
Even with her pipeline deal with Carney, stuffing the Alberta separatist genie back into its bottle might not be so easy for Smith.
Who’s running in the UCP board elections?
Here are the list of candidates running for positions in the UCP board elections that will be elected at this weekend’s AGM (* denotes an incumbent):
President:
Darrell Komick: President of the Calgary-Lougheed UCP constituency association.
Rob Smith*: President of the UCP since 2023. Previously served as President and Secretary of the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills UCP association.
Secretary:
Dan Harder: Founding member of the Mountain View Freedom group and has served as a director on the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills UCP association.
Scott Payne: Member of the Black Hats Gang, a group of activists from southern Alberta who pushed for the creation of an amended Alberta Bill of Rights. An open supporter of Alberta’s Independence from Canada. Son of former Conservative MP LaVar Payne, who is also a separatist.
Gordon Reynen: Involved in Edmonton UCP constituency associations. Ran for Edmonton director position in 2021.
Stacey Vanderveen: Campaign manager for Chantelle de Jonge in Chestermere-Strathmore in the 2023 election.
Vice President — Communications:
Pamela Davidson: Chief of Staff to cabinet minister Dale Nally. Former minister press secretary. Elected as a Senate Nominee in the 2021 elections. Married to Dr. Gary Davidson, author of the UCP’s COVID-19 task force report.
Samantha Steinke*: VP Communications of the UCP since 2022. Councillor in the Town of Valleyview. Former press secretary to cabinet minister Todd Loewen.
Vice President — Fundraising:
Darby Crouch: President of the Camrose UCP association. Former ministerial press secretary. UCP candidate in the Edmonton-Strathcona by-election.
Helen Holder: President of the Highwood UCP association. Was the contact person for the Alberta First Pension Plan town hall in Okotoks in March 2025.
Regional Director — Northern Alberta:
Benjamin Gill: Head of Corporate Development at Fort McMurray’s Northland Group of Companies. Treasurer for the McKay Métis Group.
Vicki Kozmak-LeFrense*: Northern director since 2023. Former President of the Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo UCP association. Ran for UCP Secretary in 2021 and Northern Director in 2022. Currently serving as chair of the UCP’s Candidate Selection Committee and Policy and Governance Committee Policy Sub-committee.
Regional Director — Edmonton:
Andre Grondin: Ran for Devon Town Council in 2021.
Abigail Johnson: Staffer for cabinet minister Adriana LaGrange. Former member of the Red Deer Polytechnic Conservative Club. Daughter of Lacombe-Ponoka UCP MLA Jennifer Johnson.
Richard Mallett: An Edmonton-based lawyer.
Jaspreet Saggu: Ran for the federal Conservative nomination in Edmonton—Southeast ahead of the 2025 election and for the UCP nomination in Edmonton-Ellerslie ahead of the 2025 by-election. Ran for the UCP nomination in Edmonton-Manning in 2023.
Regional Director — Central Alberta:
Albert Biel*: Central director since 2023. Ran for the position in 2022. Served as VP Policy & Governance of the Strathcona-Sherwood Park UCP association.
Brian Golka: Vice-President Fundraising for the Battle River-Crowfoot federal Conservative electoral district association.
Regional Director — Calgary:
Richard Asselin: Elected as a public school trustee in Surrey from 1993 to 1996. Worked as constituency assistant for Surrey-North Reform Party MP Margaret Bridgman.
Irma Roberts*: Lawyer. Calgary director since 2023. Former President of the Calgary-Hays UCP association.
Regional Director — Southern Alberta:
Jodie Gateman: Vulcan County Councillor since 2021. Ran as a nomination candidate in Cardston-Siksika in 2022 but was disqualified because of controversial posts on social media.
Ed Vandenberg: President of the Cardston-Siksika UCP association. Former chairman of the board of the Potato Growers of Alberta.
That slate of candidates pretty much ensures some form of fireworks.....hair on fire Black Hatters want the UCP to be full on separtist party while a few cooler heads see that as the start of the big split..... can't wait for the reporting out of this Dave!!
Will separatists be so gung-ho when they start to see AIMCO’s lousy returns, or the slow drop in oil prices, or the lack of a private sector partner to lead this mess?