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On Friday's Rebel Roundtable livestream, Sheila Gunn Reid was joined by Keith Wilson, co-lead of the Alberta Transition Council and a leader of the third-party advertiser Let Alberta Decide, to discuss the council's newly released transition white paper, a detailed plan outlining how Alberta could move from province to country.

The Alberta Transition Council assembled experts in banking, currency, international trade, taxation, immigration, military, policing and law to prepare the report, which Wilson said removes uncertainty around independence by mapping out, in granular detail, how essential services and institutions would continue functioning through a transition. 

The Alberta Transition Plan is now complete and available on the Alberta Transition Council website.

Its purpose is not to argue every political question about independence, design Alberta’s permanent constitution, or pretend that every future negotiation can be predicted in…

— Keith Wilson (@ikwilson) September 3, 2026

"We need to remove the fear of what independence would look like by providing a very detailed plan that describes the steps from going from a province to Alberta becoming a country," he said. 

Wilson said supporters have responded positively to the roughly 200-page document, while federalist critics, including former premier Jason Kenney, have so far stayed quiet after previously claiming independence advocates had no concrete plan.

"They kept repeating this line even last week... they've got no plan. They got no plan," said Wilson. "And sort of like, boom, 200 and whatever pages. Here you go. Enjoy."

Wilson pushed back on the idea that Alberta would be building institutions from nothing. He compared the transition to a corporate merger, arguing that federal employees living and working in Alberta, such as border and airport staff, would simply move to a new payroll while keeping their jobs.

"This is not a situation where Alberta is facing a bunch of unknowns," he said. "We know exactly how many border guards are on shift right now... We know how many office chairs they have!"

Wilson laid out three phases beginning with the October 19 referendum. If Albertans choose "option two," he said, the provincial government would strike a transition task force to refine negotiating positions ahead of a second, binding independence referendum planned for spring 2027. Only once trade, mobility and staffing agreements were finalized, he said, would Alberta formally declare independence.

"What changes, Sheila, is that we're no longer ruled by elected officials in Ottawa that we have no say over," Wilson said. "Instead, we will be electing officials here in Alberta that will make the decisions and policies."

Asked what would happen if Ottawa failed to negotiate in good faith, Wilson argued Alberta holds significant economic leverage as a major purchaser of central Canadian goods and a critical energy supplier, and noted the Supreme Court of Canada has said a breakdown in good-faith negotiations could open the door to a unilateral declaration of independence.

"We have tremendous economic leverage in the negotiation if the other players don't want to be fair, and we have an escape route if they're downright nasty," he said. 

Wilson closed the interview by encouraging Albertans to read the transition plan free of charge and to support the Let Alberta Decide campaign ahead of the October 19 vote.