Peter Cunningham 🇨🇦

Curious centre-right Albertan | Proud #ForeverCanadian 🇨🇦
Learning from those who think differently
Argue. Err. Get smarter.
#NAFO Fella 🐶🇨🇦🇺🇦

[Peter Cunningham 🇨🇦 @PeterCunningham]

Resistance has become an industry, it'll never end.

The APP got two separate notices from Elections Alberta asking it to hand over financial records during the petition drive. It ignored both. Elections Alberta took it to court.

Jen Gerson pulled the Prosperity Society's corporate filings and found over $1M in donations from 2022 with no donor listed. When asked the response was that the public wasn't "entitled" to know.

David Parker's TBA pulled the same move a few years back — refused to produce a donor list, ended up with a $120k fine.

Podcasts. Merch tables. Billboard trucks on Hwy 2. Book deals timed to the referendum. Nobody will say who's writing the cheques.

[Jason Kenney 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱 @jkenney]

Your periodic reminder that separatists have been contesting federal & provincial elections in Alberta for 50 years, typically getting 1% to 2% of the vote.

I’ve told separatists for years that Alberta won’t be strengthened by making empty threats to leave.

But here we are in a pointless, deeply divisive debate for months to come. What a shame.

[Dimitris Soudas 🇨🇦⚜️🇬🇷☦️ 13.12.1943 @DimitrisSoudas]

Si vous n’avez jamais été assis derrière le bureau du premier ministre du Canada, vous ne pouvez pas mesurer ce que représente le poids d’un pays entier sur les épaules d’un seul être humain.

Alors, un peu moins de lamentations. Et si vous cherchez du réconfort, achetez-vous un ourson en peluche.

[The Globe and Mail @globeandmail]

Opinion: The numbers Alberta separatists don’t want you to see https://t.co/ESNunAf5Hx

[Polling Canada @CanadianPolling]

Among Albertan Separatists - "Which of the following best describes the main reason for why you would consider voting yes?"

Alberta would be better off outside of Canada: 61%

Alberta has been historically mistreated within Canada: 39%

Ipsos / June 1, 2026

[Polling Canada @CanadianPolling]

Alberta - "Overall, do you think the referendum and ongoing discussions about Alberta separation will have a positive or negative impact on Alberta's economy?"

Negative: 56%
Positive: 24%
No Impact: 11%

Leger / June 1, 2026

[Jason Kenney 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱 @jkenney]

The continued decline in support for separatism is good news.

But a reminder to Alberta patriots: don’t be complacent. Don’t assume this is done!

There are 137 days to go, which is an eternity in politics.

While the separatists have almost never won more than 2% of the vote in 50 years of campaigning, there are a lot of frustrated federalists who think they can cast a risk free vote to “send a message” and gain leverage.

We need to remind those good people that Quebec’s “knife to the throat” strategy has been a huge failure, not a success, with Quebec becoming the poorest large population jurisdiction in North America (measured by per capita GDP,) with the highest taxes and debt. Becoming a big recipient of equalization is not something we Albertans aspire to!

In the 2021 equalization referendum, only 39% of eligible voters cast a ballot, and that was on the same day as a municipal election.

Imagine a similar or lower turnout in October. Hard core separatists, joined by a larger number of “send a message” federalists, could manage to get 20% of eligible voters to show up. On ~40% turnout, that might be all they need to push us into a political and economic crisis.

So please take this seriously. Get involved in one of the pro unity groups, speak to your friends and neighbours.

Make the case for Alberta to lead, not leave.

[Peter Cunningham 🇨🇦 @PeterCunningham]

@MissyBouche8 @338Canada Mmm, barley 🌾

[Philippe J. Fournier @338Canada]

📊Alberta referendum poll from Ipsos:

🔴72% Remain in Canada
🔵19% Begin separation process

https://t.co/hISdaSH1Ig

[Ipsos, May 28-June 1, 2026, n=600]

[Vote to Stay @VotetoStayAB]

Albertans are rejecting separation by nearly a 3-to-1 margin. When voters look at the massive start-up costs, billions in ongoing expenses, and unanswered questions about jobs, pensions, trade, and investment, the case for separation falls apart.👇

https://t.co/yrZfPoidlx

[Polling Canada @CanadianPolling]

Rest Of Canada - "Do you ultimately want to see Alberta stay in Canada or separate?"

🔴 Stay: 80%
🔵 Leave: 7%

Ipsos / June 1, 2026

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

I’ve taken a lot of hits, and I’ve deserved some of them. I beat myself up over them more than you can imagine.

But the grace people have shown me here is truly humbling.

Some of the kindest words have come from the people you’d least expect.

And for that I am so grateful.

This isn’t about me. It’s about every person in recovery who shows up and tries again.

And to everyone still in the fight tonight: you are not alone, I see you.

[Ryan Jespersen @ryanjespersen]

And good luck selling your house for anything close to what you think it’s worth amid a mass exodus. The whole thing is lunacy, plain and simple.

[Greg Clark 🇨🇦 @GregClarkAB]

Lennie Kaplan is one of Alberta's brightest financial minds. If he says it, I believe it.

The cost of separatism:

7.2% drop in GDP
6.2% drop in personal income
10.5% drop in housing starts
8.0% drop in business investment

Separatism is a disaster 🇨🇦🇨🇦

https://t.co/Fk09ixDW8A

[Peter Cunningham 🇨🇦 @PeterCunningham]

@jkenney Resistance has become a lucrative industry.

Podcasts, merch tables, registered third-party advertisers, book deals. Donations to Rebel News, WS: more rage.

The movement now has a professional class whose income depends on it staying alive. Anonymous money is the best!

[Peter Cunningham 🇨🇦 @PeterCunningham]

@AronKlassen https://t.co/Bx2JuOFG3U

[Peter Cunningham 🇨🇦 @PeterCunningham]

Separation support has dropped 10 points since January — now at 18%.

Among the 72% who'd vote to stay, 90% describe that choice as definite. Among those who'd vote for a referendum, only 70% say the same.

That gap is real. It only matters if the stay side shows up October 19.

[Globalnews.ca @globalnews]

Already-low Alberta separatism support drops sharply from early 2026: Ipsos poll

https://t.co/LRcmxzx2X1

[Peter Cunningham 🇨🇦 @PeterCunningham]

@Cujoinpet That's some powerful liberal sorcery right there.
🧙‍♂️🇨🇦🧙

[Peter Cunningham 🇨🇦 @PeterCunningham]

@AroundBirding Me too!

[Peter Cunningham 🇨🇦 @PeterCunningham]

Soudas takes each grievance at face value, then works through what separation actually does to it.

The transition plan is targeting July or August, with no public scrutiny window announced. The vote on Option 2 (the path toward a future separation referendum) is October 19.

[Dimitris Soudas 🇨🇦⚜️🇬🇷☦️ 13.12.1943 @DimitrisSoudas]

Every grievanc is real. Almost none is an argument for leaving Canada; they’re arguments for fixing it.

We don’t fix this by walking out of the room. We fix it by refusing to leave.

So. Walk with me. Point by point:

1. Market access. You don’t have guaranteed access now, but you have it; leave and you’re a foreign country bargaining from weakness. Alberta exported ~$70B and imported ~$75B in 2024 : a net importer of the integration separation would shred. The internal barriers are absurd, but Canada is already gutting them. The One Canadian Economy Act scrapped all 53 federal CFTA exceptions in 2025, and killing the rest could add ~$200B to GDP. You don’t secede to win a fight you’re already winning inside.
2.The weak dollar. It’s ~72 US cents, but it’s a real currency backed by a central bank and a lender of last resort. Independent Alberta would have to invent a currency or adopt the US dollar and hand monetary policy to Washington with zero say. A weak loonie beats no currency at all.
3. No pipeline access across provinces. Wrong. Six crude export pipelines already leave Alberta, and the four biggest carry ~96% of everything out of the Western basin, plus the gas Mainline that’s fed Ontario and Quebec for decades. Those crossings exist today. Go foreign and a landlocked Alberta is more dependent on BC and Saskatchewan, who’d owe you nothing.
4.We pay more in than we get back. Yes, because Albertans earn more, so they pay more tax. That’s progressive taxation, including in the country you’d build. And “we get nothing back” ignores the $6.6B Health Transfer and $2.1B Social Transfer in 2025/26, plus the $75 to $100B of national debt you’d inherit day one. The math changes once you fund your own pensions, army, and currency.
5.The military is “decrepit and woke.” Stop. CAF members put their lives on the line. 158 came home from Afghanistan in coffins; others hold NATO’s eastern flank in Latvia right now, deterring Russia on your behalf. Smearing them as “woke” isn’t an argument, it’s just sad, and an insult to people who signed up to die for you. Underfunding is the politicians’ failure; the fix is investment, which NATO’s 2% push is already forcing, not building an army from zero beside a superpower you’d depend on.
6.We’re born Canadian. That’s the argument for staying and fighting for the country, not walking out. You can’t call it your country by birth and renounce it in the same breath.
7.The cost of staying beats leaving; we won’t trade liberty for safety. The evidence says otherwise. Quebec’s 1995 referendum threatened an estimated 5 to 10% of GDP; Brexit cut UK investment 11% over three years and produced six PMs in a decade. Separation isn’t a tidy political event, it’s a financial shock: capital flight, investors pricing in instability, companies leaving. A self made recession isn’t liberty.
8. Trade deals are falling apart. They’re under strain for Canada, a G7 economy of 40 million with a seat at the table. Canada is in the G7. Alberta would not be. You forfeit the seat, the voice, the leverage, then renegotiate every deal from scratch from weakness. A small, landlocked, single resource economy is the textbook price taker.
9.Liberal appointed judges, no say. A reform argument, not a secession one, and you do have a say through MPs, the Senate, and the amending formula. An independent Alberta would appoint its own judges through whoever runs Edmonton, with no Charter and no Supreme Court of Canada backstop. You’d trade judges you can vote against for judges you can’t.
10.We’re culturally different. Distinct identity never required a passport. Quebec protects its culture inside the federation, with more leverage than outside it. If family bonds survive separation, separation wasn’t protecting them; if a hard border and a foreign currency strain them, you’ve argued for staying.

[Polling Canada @CanadianPolling]

This might end up being the most one-sided independence referendum to ever exist, lmfao

[Amber Kanwar @baystreetamber]

🇨🇦Canada STUNS with 87, 800 new jobs created in May.

That's way more than the 10,000 expected. And higher than every single economist estimate for the month

Meanwhile the unemployment rate PLUNGED to 6.6% from 6.9%

The details are pretty robust:

Full time job growth drove the gains exploding 154,000 while part-time gave back 66,200 jobs