Prime Minister Mark Carney has reportedly appointed Alberta Liberal insider Morgan Breitkreutz to coordinate Ottawa's response to the growing independence movement in Alberta.

The choice is telling.

According to reporting by The Globe and Mail, Breitkreutz will lead the federal government's efforts to respond to Alberta separatism. 

He is hardly an outsider or an independent voice from the province. He is a longtime Liberal organizer who has served in senior political roles, including as acting chief of staff and deputy chief of staff to former cabinet minister Randy Boissonnault. 

Blacklock's Reporter previously noted that Breitkreutz attended Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's 2023 Calgary Stampede fundraiser as an adviser to Boissonnault. The event drew a notable contingent of Ottawa and Toronto lobbyists and Liberal insiders. That fundraiser was less an Alberta gathering than an extension of the federal Liberal political network into Calgary.

And therein lies the problem.

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Ottawa still appears to believe Alberta's frustrations are primarily a communications issue.

They aren't.

Albertans have repeatedly complained about federal policies: energy regulations, tanker bans, emissions caps, equalization, and what many see as chronic underrepresentation in national institutions.

Appointing another Liberal operative to "manage" Alberta's concerns does not address any of those grievances.

In fact, it reinforces one of the central complaints driving the independence movement: that decisions about Alberta are too often made by political insiders who believe they know what's best for the province instead of listening to the people who live here.

If the federal government's response to western alienation is simply to dispatch another Liberal fixer, it may discover that the cure only deepens the resentment.