By: Andrew Leach
Although it attracted little notice at the time, U.S. Heritage Foundation authors Peter St. Onge and E.J. Antoni wrote in June that “Canada’s Texas is threatening divorce, and it could eventually become the 51st state, with serious impacts on how much Americans pay for gasoline.” This response should concern Albertans as we look to vote in a provincial referendum on Oct. 19.
You might not pay much attention to what the U.S. Heritage Foundation writes, but they have previously attracted the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump. In 2022, Trump said that Heritage was “going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do ... when the American people give us a colossal mandate.” At a minimum, St. Onge and Antoni provide a window into how the American right views Alberta separatism, and it is not encouraging. And it is certainly not the vision of an unshackled Alberta being advanced in certain separatist quarters.
St. Onge and Antoni, like many in Alberta, blame blocked pipelines and carbon taxes for what they view as far less growth in Alberta’s oil and gas production than would otherwise be the case. They ignore, somewhat surprisingly, that oil production has grown more slowly in most regions of the U.S. than it has in Alberta since 2015. Like some of the separatists in Alberta, St. Onge and Antoni argue that “sluffing off Ottawa’s shackles could mean producing at an order of magnitude greater than current levels,” with Alberta becoming “the Saudi Arabia of the north.” One assumes that, for example, the shackles of Ottawa continue to hamper growth in U.S. oil production outside of the Permian region of Texas since, in the U.S. lower-48 or offshore in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico America, production growth since the election of the Trudeau Liberals has roughly matched that in Alberta’s oil sands.
The separatists, surely, found common cause in the first parts of the St. Onge and Antoni piece. From there, though, things get darker: St. Onge and Antoni ask readers to “imagine all that extra production in the United States, yielding not just energy independence or even energy superiority, but energy supremacy.” They view Alberta, once separate from Canada and absorbed into their country, as a shock absorber, allowing the United States to increase production and counter any lost global supply in the event of a crisis. Alberta would, in their words, make the United States immune from global price shocks, and not just for oil but for downstream products including fertilizer, too.
And it is not just the American right that is mooting the idea of an American takeover of Alberta’s resources in the event that the separatists carry the day in October. The Canadian Frontier Centre for Public Policy also wondered whether it was “conceivable that America would want Alberta as a 51st state.” Their conclusion: “You bet. [Alberta] is a virtual piggy bank full of natural resources.” Albertans, they considered, might accept statehood in return for the increased purchasing power of the U.S. dollar that would come along with it.
There is no question that Alberta’s oil and gas reserves are valuable. The oil sands alone account for about 190 billion barrels of reserves, and almost 2 trillion barrels of physical oil in place. The net present value of Alberta’s oil sands reserves alone accounts for about half of all of Canada’s natural resource wealth. Conventional oil and natural gas reserves, although smaller and less valuable than oil sands, add substantially to the province’s wealth. It is thus not surprising that a weakened Alberta has caught the attention of some of the more hegemonic voices in the United States.
Alberta’s resources would be attractive to the United States and, at least among one faction of Alberta separatists, the attraction would be mutual. What is notable though, at least based on the St. Onge and Antoni piece, is how the American right might think about Alberta: not as a 51st wealthy state of the union, but as a resource colony to advance the interests of today’s 50 states. This is, of course, not the vision that many Alberta separatists paint for an independent Alberta, and actually rings closer to the vision of the much maligned National Energy Program (NEP). The NEP, after all, once promised to use Alberta’s oil resources and wealth to cushion the national economy against the impacts of oil price shocks. The NEP is, perhaps second only to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his environment ministers, blamed for much of what has ever ailed Alberta.
Alberta’s separatists envision a future in which the United States — with Alberta as a new state of the union, a new independent nation on their northern border, or perhaps something in between — would enable the prosperity of the energy industry. If the last 21 months have taught us anything at all, it must be that the United States will, first and foremost, pursue its own interests. And, in the eyes of at least one influential U.S. think tank, those interests would be best advanced by using Alberta’s oil resources as a source of energy security and stability for the United States, not by enabling the further enrichment of the people of the new state or republic of Alberta.
The referendum on Oct. 19 provides an opportunity, as the separatists often argue, to send a message. That message will be heard in Washington as loudly as anywhere else. And that message needs to be that Alberta remains committed to Canada, and that Alberta’s resources are not available for the taking in the wake of a soon-to-come divorce. Alberta will, of course, remain happy to provide the United States with a reliable energy trading partner, as we have since oil was first exported from Alberta in the 1950s. But we will continue to do so as a province of Canada, not a resource colony of the United States.
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Just like Canada wants Alberta only to drain Albertan resources for its own ends. Or just suppress them in the cause of global climate.
The question is whether Alberta has more leverage and ability to play off Canada against the US as an independent state or a province.
I have lived in Alberta for my entire 74 years living in both Edmonton, Calgary and for the last 25 years in small town Central Alberta and I feel I can say that while there may be a small vocal group talking about becoming a US state, there is absolutely ZERO interest in this idea from the remaining 95% plus of the Alberta population. The upcoming AB referendum vote will clearly not get a majority but a 25-35% vote for separation will indicate there is still an large group of dissatisfied AB citizens with our current relationship within Canada.
While the ROC claims it can understand our concerns and wants us to stay it has yet to offer anything to work towards resolving our issues. Our issues are just not economic we also have equal concerns with governance issues like seat allocations, judicial matters, tramping down our desires to experiment with health care and our general package of values - ROC is progressive while AB (& Sask) are conservative. Just look at our federal voting preferences. We are as different & distinct within Canada as Quebec.