Secession Speakeasy #185: After a Court Halts Alberta's Petition, Wall Weighs Unilateral Action

Released May 26, 2026. Recorded in mid-May, before Premier Danielle Smith announced that a separation question would go on Alberta’s October 19 ballot.

Professor Wall (Grant M. Dahl) and the Secession Minstrel take up the May 13 ruling by Justice Shaina Leonard of Alberta’s Court of King’s Bench, which quashed the approval of Stay Free Alberta’s independence petition after finding that the province had not consulted First Nations on the effect on their treaty rights. Organizers had turned in more than 300,000 signatures against about 177,000 needed, and Smith said the government would appeal.

Wall says the ruling leaves the October vote “in legal limbo” and calls the court fight a way to wear supporters down. Wall disputes the treaty reasoning, arguing that Canada took on the British Crown’s treaty obligations and that an independent Alberta would take them on the same way. Both hosts say their trust in elections and referendums has faded, and Wall is now weighing unilateral action. Wall’s rule is sequence: “you pursue the path that the law gives you at the start but if that gets blocked then you take unilateral action.” The Minstrel goes further and urges the signers to fly Alberta flags at their homes and businesses and to act as though the province were already independent: “301,000 people go plant flags.”

Also in this episode

• Why Smith, who opposes independence, lowered the petition threshold, which Wall reads as a way to pressure Prime Minister Mark Carney
• Wall’s plan for the 2027 provincial election, modeled on Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in 2019: get United Conservative Party candidates on record about independence, back those who support it, and run independence candidates against those who do not
• The Minstrel’s doubts about a remark that Alberta would turn to Washington for recognition (“why turn to a great big weak country when you can go to a strong little one”), and Wall’s warning that some who cheer Alberta’s exit want the United States to annex it
• Quebec and Alberta separatists backing each other, by Wall’s account, and a scene from The Outlaw Josey Wales

Secession Speakeasy is an independent program produced by Grant M. Dahl. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the Texian Partisan, Texas Nationalist Enterprises, or the Texas Nationalist Movement. Featuring an episode is not an endorsement.