The Alberta question: How separatists took hold of the province’s governing party
Separatists worked for years to manufacture Oct. 19 referendum
The Edmonton stage should have been a safe space for Danielle Smith.
asserted
stage → take → Smith
A place where an Alberta premier could revel in partisan applause.
uncertain
premier → revel → applause
Smith sat on the stage, dressed in a crisp white suit, alongside her cabinet at the United Conservative Party’s 2025 annual general meeting to take questions from the party faithful.
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Smith → sit → faithful
One man, dressed in a blue blazer and baseball cap, stepped up to the microphone and launched into a familiar refrain of western grievance with the federal government.
But he wasn’t there to ask Smith a question.
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he → dress → question
He was there to send a message.
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He → send → message
"My question for the room is how many of all of us favour a free and independent Alberta?" shouted Jeff Rath, constitutional lawyer, UCP member and the bulldog of the Alberta independence movement.
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Rath → favour → movement
The crowd rose in an ovation.
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crowd → rise → ovation
Smith, appearing unfazed, shot back with a political maxim Albertans would soon hear repeatedly.
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Albertans → appear → maxim
"Well, I support an independent Alberta within a united Canada."
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I → support → Canada
At past AGMs, Smith’s proclamations were received by cheers.
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proclamations → receive → cheers
But on this day, the audience booed her.
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audience → boo → her
Smith offered her united Canada pitch twice more during the AGM, touting her successes in addressing Alberta’s concerns with Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney.
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Smith → offer → Carney
Why give up now, she said, when victory was at hand?
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victory → give → hand
As before, she was booed.
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she → boo → ?
Jeff Rath, seen on the big screen, whips up the crowd at the UCP annual general meeting in Edmonton in November 2025 with a call to action for independence.
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Rath → see → independence
Premier Danielle Smith, seated in white, was booed when she pushed back.
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she → seat → white
Something had changed within the UCP.
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Something → change → UCP
It was now home to a movement, activated during the COVID-19 pandemic, bent on breaking up Canada.
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It → activate → Canada
"There was a cohort of the population who were living in alternative reality in COVID and they just got active," said former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, whose 2022 resignation came, in part, at the hands of that movement.
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resignation → be → movement
A fifth estate investigation found that Smith leaned on this movement during her rise to the premiership.
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Smith → find → premiership
While polling consistently shows independence is out of step with the vast majority of Albertans, the premier nonetheless called a separation referendum for Oct. 19.
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premier → show → Oct.
Albertans are divided.
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Albertans → divide → ?
And some of the separatists Smith once welcomed into her "big tent" party are now trying to remove her from office.
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Smith → welcome → office
Through interviews, reviews of government documents and separatist video archives, the fifth estate has identified four critical steps the independence movement took to push Alberta into a referendum that could change the fate of a nation.
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that → identify → nation
Step 1: The takeover
In the spring of 2021, a slender man with slicked-back hair and a thin voice travelled from one Alberta town to another like an itinerant preacher, speaking to whoever would listen.
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whoever → slick → preacher
In the 1980s, Modry was a surgeon hailed for performing the first heart-lung transplant in Western Canada.
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Modry → hail → Canada
But his medical career crashed in 2013, after Alberta Health Services suspended his surgical privileges over performance issues.
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Services → crash → issues
He unsuccessfully fought the suspension in court and in 2017, he failed to renew his licence.
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he → fight → licence
By 2021, he had embraced Alberta independence as his new calling.
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he → embrace → calling
In speeches, Modry laid out a path to create a new country through a referendum.
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Modry → lay → referendum
Modry wasn't calling for the formation of a separatist political party.
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Modry → call → party
His path to a referendum was through the UCP itself, by transforming it into a government with an "independence focus."
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path → transform → focus
Dennis Modry speaks at a separatist rally in Edmonton in October 2025, urging Albertans to vote to leave Canada.
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Modry → speak → Canada
It was one of his last public events after a judge found in March 2025 that he misappropriated $1.3 million from his aunt and uncle.
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he → find → aunt
"When Jason Kenney and the UCP were elected, they had 120,000 members," Modry told an audience in Medicine Hat in 2021.
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Modry → elect → 2021
"We want to grow that membership to four or five or six or seven hundred thousand people."
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We → want → people
A group that large, even in a province of nearly three million voters, could shape an election, he said.
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he → shape → election
If they were successful, Modry was fond of saying, 2023 could be the last provincial election in Alberta’s history.
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2023 → say → history
Modry joined lawyer Jeff Rath and sporting goods store owner Mitch Sylvestre in creating the Alberta Prosperity Project, an organization dedicated to promoting separation.
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Modry → join → separation
The trio also joined the UCP.
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trio → join → UCP
…and 91 more, not listed.
The Aporia
