Looks like there will be a separation referendum in Alberta in 2026. As a risk manager, it is important to weigh tail risk events like this.
Alberta’s separation would create a fiscal shock of historic proportions for the country. The province is by far the biggest net contributor to the country amounting to roughly $14 billion annually to federal coffers, money that underpins programs like equalization and major transfers.
Removing this contribution would force Ottawa to either run significantly larger deficits or impose tax hikes to maintain current spending levels. Equalization alone would become politically and financially untenable: Quebec’s $13.3 billion entitlement would consume nearly the entire remaining envelope, leaving other recipient provinces with nothing or triggering deep proportional cuts. For Atlantic Canada and Manitoba, where equalization represents 15–20% of total budgets, this would be devastating.
Beyond transfers, Alberta is an economic powerhouse. It accounts for 15% of Canada’s GDP—about $474 billion of a $3.1 trillion economy—and drives 32% of national exports, including over 91% of Canada’s oil exports and 60% of its natural gas. In 2024, Alberta shipped roughly $183 billion in goods abroad, with petroleum products alone worth $124 billion. Over 2007–2019, the oil and gas sector contributed $53 billion in federal revenues, averaging $4–6 billion per year.
Losing this economic engine would shrink Canada’s tax base, weaken the dollar, and erode investor confidence and the ripple effects would be severe: higher borrowing costs from potential credit downgrades, reduced fiscal capacity for health care and infrastructure, and a structural hit to Canada’s global competitiveness.
In short, Alberta’s departure would not just be a political crisis, it would dismantle a cornerstone of Canada’s economy, leaving the federation smaller, a lot poorer, and far less stable.
“If you think grief has a time limit, you have likely never lost a piece of your heart.
If you think that the days, months and years will somehow erase the extent of the loss, then you have never been unlucky enough to lose a love. You are blessed, my friend.
For life without that piece of you, is a new life indeed. It is a new world when the person you miss is no longer here. Everything looks different and will never look the same again. Every day is a mountain to climb, battling the waves of emotion, when a song plays, a smell reminds or a memory rears. And that never lessens, we only become accustomed to handling it. To hiding it.
You may think time is healing the hurt, then you enter a new phase of your life; a relationship, a child, a grandchild, a new opportunity, and you realise you cannot share that with your missing part. The waves bear down fresh, as they were on the very the first day.
If you think grief has a time limit, my friend, you have never lost a piece of your heart. And for that, you should be truly grateful.
Let the grieving grieve for as long as they must, and if you want to help, just love them more.
Love is the only way.”
#SayTheirNames It’s the best gift you can give a grieving heart. 💕
Written by
Donna Ashworth ❤️
@slav_metalurges A lovely man…and so kind to have reached out to me when my mom had some issues…the world has lost a good decent man. I will miss his stories! My condolences to all..,