February 13, 2025
It feels like a rerun of Pierre Trudeau’s infamous National Energy Program, which caused thousands of Albertans to lose their livelihoods and spawned the bumper sticker, “Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark.”

Liberal response to Trump tariffs could break the country apart

Using Alberta oil as a bargaining chip runs a real risk of fuelling western separation

For years, it’s been assumed that the biggest threat to Canadian unity comes from the province of Quebec. It hosted a separatist terrorist movement in the 1960s and is home to the sovereigntist Parti Québécois. It held two referenda on separation, the last of which saw the country hang together by less than one per cent of the vote. Today, the party tops the polls and is threatening to hold another referendum if it takes power next year.

But the game has changed, thanks to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. The biggest threat to the integrity of Canada no longer lies in the east, but in the west — namely, the province of Alberta. A showdown is looming between Edmonton and Ottawa over Canada’s upcoming tariff war with the United States — one that will start this week, when provincial premiers meet with the federal government to hash out a “Team Canada” response to Trump’s threats.

The battle lines are clear. Over the weekend, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said that, “Everything is on the table” when it comes to countering Trump’s tariffs, including withholding the four-million barrels of oil Alberta ships south every day.

This caused a backlash from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who spent part of the weekend meeting with Trump at his Mar-A-Lago resort. “We won’t stand for that and you should never, ever threaten something you cannot do,” she said. Smith reminded Joly that western Canadian crude flows to refineries in Ontario and Quebec through Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, which runs through the U.S. Threats to cut off oil are thus “empty,” she added, and would fuel a national unity crisis.

Smith is not wrong. If the federal government isn’t careful, it could inflame the “Wexit” movement, which, for the first time, would be feasible, because it could find a willing partner in Washington. Trump thinks it would be great if Canada became America’s 51st state. But what parts would he want? Downtown Toronto, with its core of NDP and Liberal voters? The province of Quebec, which speaks a different language?

Nope. The prize would be Alberta, with its oil and conservative mindset. And its border with the Northwest Territories. If Trump got Alberta, his next stop would be striking a deal with the N.W.T., then on to neighbouring Yukon, to increase the U.S.’s access to the Arctic and its undersea oil reserves.

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