Mitch, Jeff, Keith, Jason, et al…take note. Do not lose this for us before it’s even begun.

You supposedly learned cooperaton in kindergarten. Now’s the time to practice it.

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Alberta’s independence movement has finally built something substantial. Nearly 302,000 Albertans signed the independence petition. Several organizations are raising serious money. Social media audiences now reach tens of thousands of people directly, with far more seeing the material second-hand. There are volunteers, signs, town halls, advertising campaigns, and detailed work underway to determine what an independent Alberta might look like.

But the independence movement has a problem, and for once Ottawa has nothing to do with it. The problem is that some of the leading people in the movement are now pulling in different directions.

That is hardly new. Alberta independence politics has done this before. The modern movement reaches back through the Western Canada Concept and Gordon Kesler’s 1982 by-election victory, followed by various independence parties, Wexit, Wildrose Independence, and many, many other organizations. The pattern has been depressingly familiar: anger produces momentum, organizations form, personalities clash, factions develop, and eventually the movement fragments.

This time, much more is at stake because there is finally something tangible to win.

The petition, organized by the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) and Stay Free Alberta, changed the political landscape. Mitch Sylvestre and the people working with him collected nearly 302,000 signatures and delivered them to Elections Alberta. Whatever disagreements exist today, that achievement matters. It demonstrated that independence had moved well beyond a small group arguing about Ottawa on social media.

APP also spent months trying to answer the obvious questions: pensions, taxes, trade, treaties, currency, borders, and the practical mechanics of independence. Jeff Rath became one of its most prominent advocates, and Sylvestre became closely associated with the petition campaign.

Then other organizations began building their own operations.

Keith Wilson and Tanya Clemens launched Let Alberta Decide, which quickly became a major force. Wilson also became involved with the Alberta Transition Council, intended to examine how Alberta could manage the period between a successful vote and whatever constitutional settlement followed.

Cory Morgan established Pathway to Independence and concentrated on something every political campaign eventually has to do: advertising, signs, and reaching people who do not spend their evenings watching independence podcasts.

None of that is a problem. Several organizations should actually be an advantage. They reach different audiences, attract different donors, and bring different skills to the campaign. The trouble begins when organizations start competing over what happens after a victory that has not yet occurred.

APP’s release of a proposed constitution for a future Alberta brought that issue into the open. There is nothing wrong with drafting a constitution. Somebody has to think about these questions, and putting ideas on paper is useful. But there is a large difference between proposing a constitution and deciding what Alberta’s constitution will be.

Albertans have not voted to create a republic. They have not chosen a presidential system, parliamentary system, or anything else. They have not decided how a future constitution would be written, who would write it or how it would be approved. As Dennis Kalma outlines, those decisions belong to Albertans once they decide whether to pursue independence.

The same applies to transition plans produced by other organizations. They are useful because voters reasonably want to know whether pensions will continue, how trade works, and whether the government functions normally the morning after a successful vote. But plans are not mandates.

That distinction matters because October 19 is not a referendum on APP, Keith Wilson, Jeff Rath, Mitch Sylvestre, or Cory Morgan. It is a vote on whether Alberta moves toward a different political future.

The fundraising numbers show how seriously ordinary supporters are taking that opportunity:

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The important number is not simply the total. Across these organizations, a large portion of the money comes in the form of relatively small contributions.

That tells us something social media cannot. A Facebook like costs nothing. Neither does reposting something on X. Sending $50, $100, or $200 requires considerably more commitment. The independence campaign has built a genuine grassroots funding base.

Yet polling still shows the movement has considerable persuading to do. Independence supporters are not trying to win over people who already have three Alberta flags on their trucks. They need the Calgary homeowner worried about his mortgage, the Edmonton family wondering about pensions, the small-business owner concerned about trade, and the voter who is dissatisfied with Canada but remains unsure whether independence is worth the risk.

Those voters are unlikely to be persuaded by arguments over which organization should control the process after a successful vote.

The solution is not another merger. Alberta’s independence movement has seen enough organizations merge, split, and reorganize. Nor does it need a single leader.

It needs cooperation.

APP has the volunteer network created during the petition drive. Let Alberta Decide has demonstrated an ability to raise substantial money. Pathway has shown it can move quickly with advertising and grassroots outreach. The Transition Council can concentrate on pensions, borders, debt, trade, and the mechanics of transition. Other organizations can work where they are strongest.

There is more than enough work to go around.

What they should stop doing is trying to settle the next argument before winning the present one. Draft constitutions should be presented as drafts. Transition plans should be presented as plans. No organization has been appointed to speak for an Alberta that does not yet exist.

After a successful vote, Albertans can decide how a constitutional convention works, who participates, and what system of government they want. Those arguments will come soon enough.

For now, the facts are simple. Albertans signed the petition. Albertans are volunteering. Albertans are putting hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money into the campaign. Several credible organizations now possess volunteers, donors, audiences, and campaign infrastructure.

All of us have one job between now and October 19: persuade more Albertans to vote Yes.

Everything else is secondary.

The people donating $50 are not paying for leadership rivalries. The people who spent hours collecting signatures did not do it so organizations could argue over who gets credit. They did it to put the question before Albertans.

Every major independence organization should therefore make the same practical commitment: stop attacking one another, stop competing for ownership of the movement, stop pretending that post-independence questions must be settled before the referendum, and put every available dollar, volunteer, and public platform into convincing undecided Albertans.

They do not have to agree on everything. They do not have to like one another. They do not even have to agree on what an independent Alberta should eventually look like. They have to agree that none of it happens unless we win.

If the “Yes” side loses because its leaders spent the campaign fighting over who would control the future, there will be no future to control. The constitutions will go back into drawers, transition plans will gather dust, and Ottawa will point to the result as proof that Alberta has made its choice.

That would be an astonishing failure after decades of trying to reach this point.

The grassroots have already done their part.

Now, the people vying for leadership positions need to do their part.

https://www.westernstandard.news/opinion/macleod-albertas-independence-movement-has-a-leadership-problem/75964