Premier Danielle Smith has said support for starting a separation is “still too high” for her comfort. She does not like that roughly a quarter or more of Albertans feel that disheartened about the province’s place in Canada.

That reaction treats the number as a problem of mood. It is better read as a signal. It feels as if Albertans are to blame for the discontent rather than the system which fostered the sentiment in the first place.

Support at that level did not appear because a fringe suddenly discovered a new cause. It sits where it does because a large minority has spent years watching the same structural complaints go unanswered.

Watching an Alberta premier standing arm in arm with the prime minister trying to paint a socialized pipeline that may or may not be completed as a grand success only drives home the point that Canada is broken. Pointing at the growing number of secessionist supporters is just a distraction tactic.

Go Ad Free

The current independence support figures are not an accident of rhetoric. 

It tracks a decade in which Ottawa regulated oil and gas as a problem to be managed rather than a revenue base to be developed, while equalization and transfer rules continued to move money out of the province. None of the fundamental causes of alienation have been addressed through the latest pipeline plan.

Alberta independence support levels are a bellwether. Evidence that Confederation is not working for a durable share of one of its wealthiest provinces. Chiding those voters for considering the exit or hoping the share falls back to single digits without fixing the underlying issues mistakes the symptom for the cause.

If the premier thinks the support for independence is too high now, imagine how she will feel when it passes the tipping point of 50%. That may be in a couple of weeks or in a few years. But if the system itself is not changed in Canada, the number of people giving up on it will continue to grow.