Alberta Fact Check: Monte Solberg asks whether Albertans should keep Canadian citizenship. There is no mechanism to strip it.
Solberg suggests Alberta residents could immediately lose their Canadian citizenship if the province were to separate.
Former Harper cabinet minister and CEO of New West Public Affairs, Monte Solberg, poses a provocative question in his latest Substack:
"I wonder if Canadians would support granting Canadian citizenship to those who broke up their country?"
But the question itself rests on a false premise. Albertans would not be asking Canada to grant them citizenship after independence. They would already be Canadian citizens.
People born in Alberta today are Canadian citizens under the Citizenship Act. There is currently no provision in Canadian law that automatically revokes citizenship because a province leaves Confederation. Before debating whether Albertans should keep citizenship, one must first explain how millions of Canadians would lose it.
Solberg never does. Instead, he suggests separatists want "the security and even the opportunity that Canada offers them" while abandoning their obligations to the country.
Yet Canada already recognizes dual citizenship. Millions of Canadians hold citizenship in another country while remaining Canadian citizens, including the Prime Minister. Dual citizens convicted of terror offences do not have their citizenship stripped.
Canada also allows citizenship to be passed to some people born abroad who may never reside in Canada. The principle that citizenship can coexist with loyalty to another jurisdiction is already embedded in Canadian law.
When Quebec held sovereignty referendums in 1980 and 1995, no serious federal leader proposed stripping Quebecers of Canadian citizenship if they voted to leave. The debate was over whether Quebec should separate, not whether Quebecers deserved punishment for considering it.
The more revealing part of Solberg's article is not the citizenship question. It is the suggestion that citizenship should depend on political obedience.
Canada does not strip citizenship from people because they support Quebec sovereignty. It does not strip citizenship from people who advocate republicanism, constitutional reform, abolition of the monarchy, or even terrorism. Why should Alberta independence be treated differently?
If Quebecers had the democratic right to vote on sovereignty without having their citizenship threatened, Albertans deserve the same standard. Otherwise, citizenship stops being a right and starts becoming a political reward for holding the correct opinion.
Sheila Gunn Reid
Chief Reporter
Sheila Gunn Reid is the Editor-in-Chief, Alberta Bureau Chief, member of the board of directors, and host of The Gunn Show at Rebel News. Sheila also serves as President of the Independent Press Gallery of Canada. A mother of three and longtime conservative activist, Sheila is the author of bestselling books, including her most recent release, Independence Blueprint: What Alberta Can Learn From Quebec.
https://mybook.to/sheila
COMMENTS
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Bruce Atchison commented 2026-06-12 20:57:28 -0400Bernhard nailed it. What’s more, losing my Canadian citizenship would be no loss at all. Canada is a sinking ship with its crew pouring water into it. We must make a clean break from Canada.
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Bernhard Jatzeck commented 2026-06-12 17:16:45 -0400Once again, we have someone who is ignorant of history. Did the 13 colonies worry about their citizenship when they declared their independence from Britain?
