The Gospel According to Alberta
August 14, 2026
COMING SOON!
The Alberta Referendum’s immigration questions ask who may come, who may work, who receives public support and who must prove political membership. Behind those proposals lies a deeper question: when hospitals, classrooms and housing are strained, do we build greater capacity, restrict belonging, or ask people with the least power to bear the cost?
COMING SOON!
Four referendum questions present greater provincial power as freedom from courts, federal conditions, and institutions capable of saying no. The promise is simple: give Alberta the strength to fight its battles and you’ll clear the obstacles from its path. Yet power also begins to take away shared authority, accountability, public trust, and protections we only notice once they are gone. Is the harder democratic act accepting restraint, even when it keeps us from always getting what we want?
COMING SOON!
Alberta’s separation question is framed as a choice between remaining in Canada and beginning the path toward leaving it. Yet Alberta does not stand on relationally empty ground. Treaty binds us within living relationships of mutual obligation that cannot be set aside simply because a majority believes it has the power to do so. Before asking whether Alberta can choose a different future, we must ask what faithfulness requires of the relationships already holding us together—and what we risk breaking when distance is mistaken for freedom.
Before Albertans answer ten referendum questions, they are being asked to accept a story: Alberta is prosperous but exploited, generous but mistreated, threatened by outsiders and restrained by Ottawa. This episode examines that political gospel, the grievances that give it power, and the people who may be sacrificed to its promise of provincial salvation.
Featuring: Diana Batten - MLA Calgary-Acadia, Ricardo De Menezes, Rev. Bill Weaver