Don't look away

The racism on display at some separatist town halls is an important part of our provincial discussion.

It is tempting to treat the racist comment at last night’s separatist rally as a provincial embarrassment. A one-off aberration. One person who went too far and said something that does not represent the broader separatist movement or province.

Photo by Ramiro Pianarosa on Unsplash

We should resist that temptation.

Alberta separatism has many faces. Not every person who supports independence is racist, and it would be both inaccurate and unfair to suggest otherwise. People arrive at separatism for different reasons: some economic, some partisan, some cultural.

But acknowledging that diversity should not prevent us from recognizing something equally important: at its organized core, contemporary Alberta separatism bears the hallmarks of a far-right populist movement.

And racism is by no means incidental to that politics.

Separatism is one manifestation of a deeper project: defining who constitutes the real people, identifying outsiders who supposedly threaten them, and imagining a future where the political community becomes smaller, more homogeneous and more exclusive.

This was not a rogue actor

The first instinct of many separatist leaders and sympathetic commentators will be to distance themselves from what happened last night.

That response is understandable. As October 19 approaches, people trying to present Alberta independence as a respectable political option have every incentive to insist that inflammatory speakers, racist comments, and ugly signs have nothing to do with the official campaigns.

But the Alberta Prosperity Project cannot credibly be dismissed as some rogue actor on the margins of Alberta separatism. And the comments in question were not made in the parking lot, but from centre stage in a highly publicized livestreamed event.

APP describes itself as one of Alberta's largest grassroots networks and explicitly presents itself as an organization bringing together a previously fragmented independence movement. Its events have attracted thousands of supporters, and it played a central role in the campaign that brought separation onto Alberta's political agenda. They collected hundreds of thousands of signatures to support their cause.

More importantly, last night was hardly the first warning sign.

Reporting from other events documents APP CEO Mitch Sylvestre telling supporters that “replacement theory is real” and warning that immigrants would “replace the people of Alberta.” He also invokes “old stock white Canadians” while telling the overwhelmingly white audience that they do not need to apologize for being white.

Those are not ambiguous statements about immigration levels or infrastructure capacity. “Replacement” is one of the central narratives of the contemporary far right.

This type of exclusionary and conspiratorial rhetoric has found a home inside the organized separatist movement, as much as some of its leaders may disagree on whether that's a good or bad thing.

Far-right populism

Far-right populism is not defined simply by whether individual supporters harbour racist attitudes. Its politics rests on a particular conception of society.

Populism divides society between a virtuous “people” and corrupt or illegitimate elites. The far right adds another boundary: between those who genuinely belong in the community and those who supposedly threaten its identity, prosperity, or way of life.

The political community becomes something that must be protected… not merely from governments above it, but from people outside it.

Listen carefully when rhetoric about immigrants, Indigenous peoples, or other outsiders produces spontaneous approval at separatist gatherings. Those reactions tell us something about the political community being imagined.

Who belongs in the Alberta of the future?

Who gets to define it?

Whose claims on its resources are legitimate?

Who is entitled to its public services?

Those questions sit underneath much of the rhetoric surrounding Alberta independence. And they underpin most of the referendum questions on ballots this fall.

Consider the racist banner that appeared near an Alberta independence rally outside Spruce Grove earlier this month. Its message attacked First Nations people for supposedly having done “nothing” while now trying to influence Alberta's future. The separatist group holding the nearby rally denied responsibility for the banner, and there is no evidence establishing that the group put it there. But context counts.

First Nations have become prominent opponents of separation because of the profound implications independence could have for Treaties and Indigenous rights. As the referendum approaches, many have observed increasing anti-Indigenous hatred alongside hostility toward racialized people and newcomers.

“Not all separatists” misses the point

I understand why some separatist leaders are scrambling to contain the damage from the latest town hall spectacle.

They'll tell you: not all separatists are racist. Of course they aren't.

But the question remains as to why exclusionary rhetoric keeps surfacing around the movement's organizations, events, and official narratives as spoken through microphones.

When a movement builds political support partly by telling people that outsiders are taking their jobs, overwhelming their services, threatening their “heritage,” or frustrating their rightful control over “their” homeland, it should not be surprising when speakers eventually say the quiet part loudly.

Nor can this conversation end with the separatist movement.

The provincial government says it supports a sovereign Alberta within Canada, and Premier Danielle Smith has said she will vote to remain in Canada.

Alongside the separation question are five questions specifically about immigration, though. Albertans will be asked whether Alberta should reduce immigration and give Albertans priority for jobs; whether access to provincially funded programs should depend upon immigration status; whether some temporary residents should face waiting periods for social supports; and whether temporary residents should pay fees for public health care and education.

In framing these questions, Premier Smith has parroted far-right talking points that describe immigration as “out of control,” as Ottawa having permitted migrants to “flood our borders.”

Amid the anti-Indigenous banner controversy and the hosting of a major white nationalist training camp on Alberta soil, Deputy Premier Mike Ellis argued that police should focus on violent crime rather than policing opinions or “hurt feelings.”

None of this means that every argument for reducing immigration is racist. Nor does it mean that the provincial government and the separatist movement are interchangeable.

It does mean that they increasingly operate within a shared political vocabulary: one organized around scarcity, grievance, outsiders, and the idea that Alberta must protect “its own.”

The future is being described to us

As October 19 approaches, there will be enormous pressure to make Alberta separatism appear respectable.

Its most polished advocates will talk about GDP, debt allocation, trade corridors, constitutions, pensions, and currency. Those questions deserve serious examination.

But we should pay equally close attention when the conversation turns to people because political movements are not only arguments about economic and legal arrangements. They are arguments about political community.

They tell us who “we” are, who “they” are, and who belongs. Sometimes more revealingly, they tell us who doesn't.

That is why we should not avert our eyes when racist or exclusionary rhetoric surfaces at separatist gatherings. We should not dismiss every incident as another unfortunate individual who does not represent the real cause.

We should listen, especially to what receives applause. Those talking points reveal something about the society that an influential part of this movement hopes to build.

The central question facing Albertans this October is not simply whether Alberta should become a country. It is what kind of country they are being asked to create.