People underestimate how much Russian propaganda they eat up. Russia has had great success with their damned propaganda. They are great at getting people to be divisive and fight each other. We need solidarity, not self segregation.

Actually, from recent reports I've seen, it seems it's Smith trying to save her own butt because much of her party wants this and is at risk of splitting up if they don't get their way.

She's said a referendum would be an "outlet" to let them feel heard, but she's obviously playing with fire. (Fwiw, Smith says she isn't for secession herself, but take that as you will.) If she was responsible and cared at all about her province and country, she'd be trying to put that fire out (aiming for a unity moment), rather than fanning the flames.

Russia is for sure sowing seeds of doubt across all sorts of movements to politically disrupt us, but the whole reason separation is being taken at all seriously rests entirely on Danielle Smith. She thinks that legitimizing their concerns means that the UCP will stay together because the entire party is built on the idea of sharing a tent with fringe crazies. She's also encouraging all the talk about it because it is distracting from the government's ongoing scandals.

It happens to states that feel they are the ones providing a nation all the wealth but get an unbalanced return of benefits from the nation. So someone gets the idea that the state would thrive, economically, if they were able to spend their earnings on themselves, as though the nation is holding them back.

Applying common logic, though, most people don't acknowledge any of the pros for all of the cons. But there are some—imagine a nationalist mindset for their state/ region if you will—that think it's the right thing to do because the current setup is "unfair".

Russia this, Russia that, it always magically comes down to Russia.

People have been talking about this here for years now? Why is it just now when this stuff hits the national news that people suddenly start shouting "RUSSIA!" like people would yell "WITCH" in the dark ages?

This isn't a brand new thing that's come from nowhere. It's literally been in discussion for decades. William Aberhart was premier way back in the 30's with the Social Credit Party and people wanted to separate from Canada since he wanted to roll out what was basically a UBI program to assist people during the Depression, only to have the Mackenzie King Liberals state they'd refuse to give unemployment assistance to non-Liberal provincial governments in response, causing people to call for it.

Since then there's been plenty of people calling for this, mainly starting from the 70s with Pierre Trudeau. There was the Western Canada Concept (WCC), West-Fed, the Alberta Party was pro-separatist for decades, the Separation Party, Alberta First, the Freedom Conservative Party, Wexit Alberta, there's the Wildrose Independence Party which formed from the previous two merging, hell, even the Alberta Republicans have been around now for what, three years?

Even federally there was a big Wexit movement the last election or two before this one. Before that this went back to the Reform Party days when a notable amount of separatist-minded folk voted for Manning's party.

Edit: Crazy stuff getting downvoted on my comments for basing what I say on facts at hand, the original comment literally admits they have "no evidence or indication", and yet y'all still flock to the idea. That's just sad.