J.M.

[J.M. @caper778]

@GoElks C. Tyrell Ford

[Alberta NDP @albertaNDP]

The UCP is making national news with their sham committee.

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

You HAVE to watch this clip!!!!

The UCP released a statement on the referendum committee before the committee was even done!

Seriously, watch this clip!

This is the UCP's "democracy" in action.

This is beyond the pale!

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

[Gil McGowan @gilmcgowan]

Just in case there’s any doubt that the separatists are colluding with MAGA Americans and that their ultimate goal is to turn Alberta into the 51st state in Donald Trump’s America … take a look at these posts from Parker and Rath. They’re saying the quiet part out loud.

[BBC News (World) @BBCWorld]

Foreign actors like Russia interfering in Alberta separatist debate, new report says https://t.co/i9U5YQxjB1

[Duane Bratt🇨🇦 @DuaneBratt]

2) To replace the Commission's majority report and create a committee of MLAs to determine boundaries. Without public hearings. I fear this is to impose the minority report (2 UCP appointees) to extremely gerrymander ridings in Alberta. A major blow to democracy in Alberta

[Carrie Tait @CarrieTait]

SCOOP: Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery curtailed Elections Alberta's power to penalize when Sam Mraiche was under investigation.
https://t.co/HrTUUadOlV w @tom_cardoso

[Katy E 🇨🇦🇺🇦 @MargTokar]

This…

[Financial Times @FT]

Exclusive: The Trump administration has held covert meetings with fringe separatists from the oil-rich Canadian province as a rift deepens between Washington and Ottawa. https://t.co/5hRv2wMHEV

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

same playbook as supporting afd in germany…

[Jason Gregor @JasonGregor]

Very good post from Sharon Hayes...Worth your time.

Most Alberta separation arguments fail before they even get to equalization.
They start with the assumption that Alberta “sends money away” and would magically fix its problems if that stopped. That assumption misunderstands how federal taxes, equalization, and risk-sharing actually work.
From there, the entire argument collapses.
The pitch is simple and emotionally effective:
“Alberta pays billions in equalization and gets nothing back. We’d be better off on our own.”
That story only works if you isolate one program, blur how it actually functions, and quietly imply things that are not true.
Yes, Alberta pays more to the federal government than it gets back in equalization.
That part is true.
What’s misleading is treating that fact as evidence of extraction.
Here’s what equalization actually is.
Equalization is a federal program, paid out of general federal revenues. It is not a direct transfer from Alberta to Quebec. Alberta does not write an equalization cheque. There is no line item where “Alberta’s money” is sent east.
The federal government collects revenues nationally through:
- Personal income taxes
- Corporate taxes
- GST and excise taxes
- Other federal revenues
Those revenues go into a single federal pool. Equalization payments are then calculated based on fiscal capacity, meaning a province’s ability to raise revenue at average tax rates.
If a province has lower capacity, the federal government tops it up so it can provide reasonably comparable public services. If a province has higher capacity, it does not qualify.
That’s it.
Equalization is not:
- A refund program
- A reward or punishment
- A moral judgment
- A transfer from Alberta taxpayers to Quebec taxpayers
Alberta doesn’t qualify because its fiscal capacity is higher. British Columbia and Saskatchewan also receive zero. That distinction matters, and it is almost always missing from separation rhetoric.
Another implication that often sneaks into this conversation is that individual Albertans are personally paying higher federal taxes than people elsewhere.
That is also false.
Federal income taxes are set nationally. An Albertan and an Ontarian earning the same income pay the same federal income tax. Same brackets. Same rates. Same rules. There is no “Alberta surcharge” in the federal tax code.
When Alberta sends more to Ottawa, it is not because Albertans are taxed more harshly. It is because:
- Average incomes are higher
- Corporate profits are larger in boom years
- Employment rates are higher
- More people are working and earning taxable income
That’s arithmetic, not discrimination.
Demographics matter here too.
Alberta has a younger population than many provinces. Younger populations mean:
- More people in prime working years
- Fewer retirees drawing federal benefits
- Higher employment-to-population ratios
- More income tax collected relative to benefits paid
That demographic advantage boosts federal revenues flowing out of Alberta in good years. It also means Alberta draws less from age-related federal programs compared to older provinces. That is not a policy choice made in Ottawa. It is a population-structure reality.
More importantly, equalization is one program, not the totality of Alberta’s relationship with Canada.
Here’s the part the propaganda skips:
Alberta receives billions every year in federal transfers that have nothing to do with equalization.
Core transfers alone matter:
- The Canada Health Transfer
- The Canada Social Transfer
Together, these now total roughly $8–9 billion per year flowing to Alberta, rising over time. These funds support healthcare, post-secondary education, childcare, and social services. They do not disappear just because Alberta does not receive equalization.
Then there is stabilization:
Alberta is a high-income, high-volatility province tied to global oil prices. In boom years, Alberta sends more to Ottawa. In bust years, the federal government acts as a shock absorber.
That is not redistribution.
That is insurance.
We have seen this repeatedly.
In 2014–2016, oil prices collapsed from over $100 USD to under $30. Alberta lost more than 100,000 jobs. Provincial revenues cratered. Federal EI payments surged. Household incomes were stabilized by federal programs while Alberta absorbed the shock.
In 2020, oil prices briefly crashed at the same time COVID shut down large parts of the economy. Alberta still received $6.6B in core federal transfers that year, rising to $8.2B by 2024–25, with $9.2B projected. That is before counting pandemic programs.
Canada also has a Fiscal Stabilization Program specifically designed for sharp provincial revenue collapses. Alberta received hundreds of millions through this mechanism when oil revenues imploded. Alberta’s volatility is not ignored by the federation. It is explicitly planned for.
Now let’s talk COVID support, because this is where the “we get nothing back” claim really breaks.
Alberta received less CERB per capita than many provinces, although not dramatically so. Not because Ottawa singled it out, but because Alberta has higher wages and more EI-eligible workers. CERB flowed mainly to low-wage, service, tourism, gig, and seasonal work. Alberta has less of that.
Meanwhile, the real money was flowing elsewhere.
Through the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, Alberta businesses received roughly $14–15B, scaled to payroll size and wage levels. Add CEBA loans, liquidity programs, and sector supports, and Finance Canada estimates Alberta saw a net increase of roughly $10.9B in federal inflows in 2020 compared to 2019.
That matters when people cite figures like “$244B sent to Ottawa.”
Those numbers measure net contribution in good years, not what Alberta avoided losing in bad ones. Net contributor status is not proof of extraction. It is the arithmetic result of higher incomes during booms, paired with federal insurance during busts.
Now add the piece that separation rhetoric almost never confronts:
If Alberta were truly being starved of its own money, its provincial systems would reflect that. They don’t. They reflect provincial policy choices, even while federal money continues to flow.
Alberta’s health system has experienced repeated emergency department disruptions and closures, even as it receives billions annually through the Canada Health Transfer. The province is currently restructuring its entire healthcare system because the existing model is not functioning as intended.
Alberta’s education system has faced rapid enrollment growth, larger class sizes, and rising classroom complexity, culminating in a historic province-wide teachers’ strike. This is happening while federal social transfers continue to flow and while Alberta remains one of the wealthiest provinces in the country.
And Alberta is actively restructuring disability supports, reducing benefit levels under a new program while instructing recipients to apply for the federal Canada Disability Benefit, then clawing that federal money back. That is not Ottawa starving Alberta. That is Alberta choosing how to allocate support.
The claim that Alberta would thrive if it simply “stopped sending money away” collapses when you look at outcomes. Equalization is not draining Alberta’s budget. Federal money is already flowing in. The state of healthcare, education, and disability services reflects provincial governance decisions, not federal confiscation.
Now add the piece that is almost always left out entirely: oil industry support and cleanup costs.
In 2020, the federal government committed $1.7 billion to clean up orphan and inactive oil and gas wells in Western Canada, with Alberta receiving the largest share, including:
- Over $1 billion to the Alberta government
- A $200 million loan to the Orphan Well Association
This is direct federal spending inside Alberta to deal with oil industry liabilities.
On top of that, the federal government provides ongoing oil and gas subsidies, tax preferences, public financing, carbon capture incentives, and transition funding. A disproportionate share of this support flows to oil-producing provinces, primarily Alberta.
These are not symbolic amounts. They are material assumptions of environmental and financial risk by the federal government.
Now we have to talk honestly about Alberta’s dependence on oil prices, because this is where the independence fantasy quietly breaks.
“Oil is profitable” is not the same thing as “Alberta is fiscally stable.”
Alberta produces several types of oil, each with different economics.
For conventional light and medium oil, operating break-even costs are roughly $35–$50 USD per barrel. These wells can remain viable at relatively low prices, but they represent a shrinking share of production and no longer drive provincial revenues the way oil sands do.
For oil sands mining projects, operating costs once built can fall into the $30–$40 USD range. But when you include capital costs, financing, and long-term investment recovery, full-cycle break-even prices rise to roughly $60–$80 USD per barrel.
For in-situ oil sands (SAGD), operating break-even typically sits around $35–$45 USD, while full-cycle economics usually require $50–$65 USD oil.
Oil sands projects can keep pumping at lower prices once built, but new investment, expansion, royalties, and public revenues depend on much higher sustained prices.
For Alberta as a province, fiscal stability historically requires oil prices in the range of $75–$85 USD per barrel. Below that, royalty revenues fall sharply even if companies remain profitable. At $50–$60 USD, Alberta’s public finances deteriorate quickly. At $40–$50 USD, deficits become structural.
In other words:
- Oil companies can survive at $40
- Alberta’s public finances cannot
And volatility is the real problem.
Oil prices are shaped by OPEC decisions, wars, global demand cycles, financial speculation, and technological shifts. Alberta does not control these forces.
This leads to one unavoidable conclusion that rarely gets stated plainly:
Alberta is a price taker, not a price maker.
Alberta does not set global oil prices. It reacts to them.
Prices are influenced by:
- OPEC and OPEC+ production decisions
- U.S. shale output and U.S. domestic political priorities
- Global demand from China, India, and Europe
- Wars, sanctions, and shipping disruptions
Even the United States, the world’s largest producer, cannot fully control prices. Alberta, as a single producer within a global market, has even less influence.
That means Alberta’s fiscal health is structurally tied to decisions made outside the province, often for reasons that have nothing to do with Alberta’s needs.
Independence does not change that reality. It intensifies it.
Without federal risk-sharing:
- Volatility becomes fiscal crisis
- Downturns become deeper and longer
- Public services become harder to sustain
Oil doesn’t just fund Alberta.
Oil destabilizes Alberta.
Being part of a federation cushions that instability.
Independence would magnify it.
Much of the anger wrapped around equalization isn’t really about equalization at all. It’s about control over resources, regulatory friction, pipelines, and a feeling that decisions affecting Alberta are made elsewhere. Those are legitimate political debates.
But laundering those grievances through a misleading story about equalization distorts the problem and leads to bad conclusions.
Now ask the question separation advocates avoid.
What does an independent Alberta look like in the next oil crash?
No federal EI backstop.
No wage subsidies.
No national borrowing power.
No stabilization program.
No shared cleanup funding.
No national balance sheet absorbing risk.
An independent Alberta wouldn’t just “keep more money.” It would have to build its own EI system, its own stabilization fund large enough to absorb oil crashes, its own borrowing credibility, and fully assume oil cleanup liabilities alone.
Comparisons to Norway ignore the fact that Norway built its sovereign wealth fund before separating risk, runs massive trade surpluses, and taxes oil aggressively at the national level. Alberta has not done that at scale.
That doesn’t mean Alberta couldn’t survive.
It means the recessions would be deeper, the swings harsher, and the fiscal promises harder to keep.
You can argue for reform. You can argue for more autonomy.
But if the case for separation collapses once you explain equalization, federal transfers, stabilization, demographics, oil-sector risk sharing, oil-price dependence, price-taking reality, and the actual state of Alberta’s public systems, then equalization was never the real issue.
Sharon Hayes
Footnote: None of this even touches the legal and political reality that separation would require renegotiating Indigenous treaties, navigating constitutional law, and securing broad democratic legitimacy.

[New England Patriots @Patriots]

THE PATRIOTS ARE IN THE PLAYOFFS.

[Duane Bratt🇨🇦 @DuaneBratt]

Alberta wasted more than $100M in lab privatization effort: Auditor general report https://t.co/Etg5gdWtMz via @edmontonjournal

[Jared Wesley @DrJaredWesley]

Where's the premier while MLAs rush through an all-night debate on stripping Albertans of their Charter rights?

An airport lounge, waiting for a flight to Saudi Arabia. She didn't even bother to show up for the vote.

[Ed Pub Teachers @EdPubTeachers]

LET'S DO IT AGAIN! Thursday is the "State of the Province" address by Premier Smith at Ford Hall. SHARE THIS FAR & WIDE!

Show up & make sure they know we're there! We go until 1-ish or our voices run out!
#EdPub #Local37 #FightforPublicEducation #StandTogether #DemandBetter

[Jason Scott 🇨🇦 @JasonOnTheDrums]

#ableg #abpoli

FYI: When Danielle Smith says there’s “no money” for education - she means for 700,000 kids in public schools

But if you’re the daughter of a UCP MLA or failed UCP candidate? There’s HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS to build you a school!

This is why Teachers are striking

[The Breakdown @TheBreakdownAB]

At tonight’s “consultation”…

When a high school kid tried to raise concerns about the teachers strike, Bruce McAllister cut the kids mic and then suggested his parents should have beaten him more.

Listen to the clip yourself…

It’s…

Telling.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

[jason schilling @schill_dawg]

Alberta spends the least per student in the entire country. Now you can see what your school—or your child’s school—could look like with funding that matched the National average or that of BC and Manitoba:

👉 https://t.co/Kz3rwby9lu

[Margaret E Atwood @MargaretAtwood]

Here's a piece of literature by me, suitable for seventeen-year-olds in Alberta schools, unlike -- we are told -- The Handmaid's Tale. (Sorry, kids; your Minister of Education thinks you are stupid babies.)

John and Mary were both very, very good children. They never picked their noses or had bowel movements or zits. They grew up and married each other, and produced five perfect children without ever having sex. Although they claimed to be Christian, they paid no attention to what Jesus actually said about the poor and the Good Samaritan and forgiving your enemies and such; instead, they practised selfish rapacious capitalism, because they worshipped Ayn Rand. (Though they ignored the scene in The Fountainhead where “welcomed rape” is advocated, because who wants to dwell, and also that would have involved sex and would de facto be pornographic. Well, it kind of is, eh?) Oh, and they never died, because who wants to dwell on, you know, death and corpses and yuk? So they lived happily ever after. But while they were doing that The Handmaid’s Tale came true and Danielle Smith found herself with a nice new blue dress but no job. The end.

[Courtney Theriault @cspotweet]

Province refuses to release early results of its Alberta Next surveys

https://t.co/Tqwy7n2RJj