The renewed push to have Alberta separate from Canada has caught the eyes of some pundits on Fox News, who are suggesting the discontent could play into the larger trade and security negotiations between Canada and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced this week that she doesn’t want Alberta to leave Canada but, if enough residents sign a petition asking for a referendum on it, she’ll make sure it’s put to a vote in 2026.
Smith — who delivered her speech a day before Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Trump at the White House — also presented a list of demands for Carney’s new Liberal government, and threatened to take steps to assert Alberta’s sovereignty if Ottawa didn’t address the province’s grievances.
Those remarks, and the calls for secession from some Alberta residents, played into the coverage of the Carney-Trump sit-down on Fox News this week.
“President Trump is sensing weakness and I think he smells blood,” Jeanine Pirro said Tuesday during a discussion on the popular panel show The Five.
“If there is a sense in Canada that the people aren’t happy, if the provinces that have talked about seceding are saying that the Canadian federal government is not concerned about them, it may be that Trump is sensing this and he’s going to target them, and that all of this (negotiations between Trump and Carney) is just kind of, like, another discussion, but it’s really about those places that want to secede.”
Pirro suggested Quebec also wants to secede, despite the sovereigntist Bloc Quebecois’ diminished seats in the recent federal election and recent polling suggesting Trump’s attacks on Canada’s sovereignty and economy have dampened the separatist movement.
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Co-host Jesse Watters went even further in response to Pirro, suggesting Alberta alone could become America’s 51st state instead of Canada as a whole, as Trump has repeatedly called for.
“I think we want Alberta, because they’re the powerhouse,” he said. “They have all the oil, they have all the minerals. … They’re also conservative in Alberta, so it’s not a great, beautiful line like what you’d see (as a combined Canada with the U.S.) but it would just kind of look like a big Florida that would shoot up north. But it would give us access to the Arctic.
“There’s going to be a referendum, I don’t know if it’s going to be possible, but I like how he’s using the leverage. If these people want to go, just use that as a little pressure point to exploit them for concessions.”
The same day, while talking about the White House meeting, Fox Business anchor David Asman brought up the Alberta separatism movement and Smith’s remarks from Monday, including what he said was her claim that Alberta is “not getting anything from the federal government.”
“I think Donald Trump and this 51st state thing is playing into that, what’s going on in Canada, he said.
“He could chip off a piece at a time and do business with the very oil-rich section of Canada,” anchor Martha MacCallum responded in agreement.
Political analysts had predicted earlier this week that Smith’s speech would likely be noticed by decision-makers and media in the U.S. Trump has been known to regularly watch and publicly comment on Fox News programs.
“It doesn’t strengthen Canada’s position,” Lori Williams, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, told Global News.
“People in the United States, the strategists there, are going to be looking for any chinks in the armour, and this is something that they might want to try to exploit or take advantage of.”
Smith’s office did not respond to a request for reaction to the Fox News comments and suggestions that Alberta could become part of the U.S. in the event it secedes from Canada.
Smith travelled to Florida to meet with Trump in January before his inauguration, after he first threatened sweeping tariffs on Canada. She has also appeared on Fox News herself to argue against tariffs and propose strengthening U.S. business and energy ties.
The premier was also criticized for telling Breitbart News on the eve of the federal election campaign that she wanted the Trump administration to “pause” its tariffs to avoid boosting the Liberals.
Carney met with Canada’s premiers Wednesday and discussed “building projects of national interest to diversify the economy, create higher-paying jobs, and build one Canadian economy instead of 13,” according to a readout from the Prime Minister’s Office.
Smith said after the meeting there’s an emerging consensus among premiers that federal regulations need to be cleared away to allow for “nation building projects” and investment, which Carney has also publicly supported.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has said he doesn’t want Alberta to secede, said Wednesday he told Carney that it’s time his government started “showing some love” to Alberta and Saskatchewan, where there has also been talk of separation recently.
Angus Reid polling in April found 30 per cent of Albertans supported their province separating from Canada, down from 60 per cent who said in 2019 they were open to joining a western separatist movement. A Leger poll this week suggested 62 per cent of Albertans believe the separation threat should be taken seriously.
A February poll from Ipsos found 30 per cent of Albertans believe either their province, Quebec or both will separate from Canada within the next 10 years, while 28 per cent said they would vote for their newly-independent province to join the U.S.
The poll found that nationally, younger Canadians aged 18-35 were more likely to voice support for their province or country joining the U.S. compared to older Canadians. Nearly one-third of younger respondents said it was “only a matter of time” before Canada and the U.S. become a single, unified country.
