Following Pierre Poilievre's resounding victory in the Battle River-Crowfoot byelection this week, Alberta's former premier took to social media to suggest the result revealed the province's independence movement as nothing more than a “completely empty shell.”

Kenney, once a cabinet minister in former prime minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government, said voters delivered a “clear message” that a referendum on separation from Canada was a “pointless distraction from the important work of building a stronger and more prosperous Alberta, and fighting for needed reforms in Ottawa.”

On Tuesday's Rebel Roundup livestream, hosts Sheila Gunn Reid and Lise Merle told the former premier to butt out of Albertans' business.

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“Just go away into obscurity,” was the message from Sheila to Kenney, drawing comparisons to Danielle Smith's exit from politics before returning to assume the role of United Conservative Party leader and ultimately premier following Kenney's resignation.

“She said, 'I didn't think people wanted to hear from me,' and it's true — we weren't ready to hear from her,” Sheila explained. “And so, she just went away and thought about what she had done and then sort of rebuild her reputation and reassessed her opinions.”

The former premier was “revealing his extreme bias in trying to convince himself that the separatist movement in the West is just a big old nothingburger” because he “doesn't know the people of Alberta or Saskatchewan.”

Rejecting separatist politicians isn't Albertans dismissing support for separatism, said Sheila. Instead, “it's a rejection of a partisan party structure around the separatist movement.”

Voters in Battle River-Crowfoot see Poilievre's role as very different from voting yes or no in a potential referendum, added Lise.

“The people of Alberta are smart enough to know that they don't need Pierre Poilievre's to want to leave Canada; it's not even a conversation that they would probably talk to him about. They view his role very differently as their representative in Ottawa, whereas they can still want better for themselves and want to leave the country and still support the Conservative Party of Canada.”