Nine Thoughts on Alberta First’s Future 1. We are told to remain inside the @Alberta_UCP, keep our heads down, build quietly, and wait until after 2027 for @ABDanielleSmith to stumble. That isn’t strategy. It’s surrender disguised as patience. The campaign energy will fade, organizations will atrophy, and sovereigntists will crawl back to the federalist reservation for scraps. The can has been kicked far enough. 2. Smith did not give us a binding referendum on Independence. She gave us a non-binding referendum on whether to begin the process of holding one. A referendum on a referendum. Then, after the result, she declared there would be no more Independence referendums while she is Premier. Our movement spent its energy on a dead end. Now she cites the result to close the discussion. Alberta’s future is not hers alone to settle. 3. Smith declares the UCP a federalist party and invites sovereigntists who insist on organizing to leave. Leave? Wildrose grassroots helped build her premiership. Alberta First supporters aren’t tenants in their own political home. The UCP belongs to its membership, not its leader. She cannot simply tell a substantial part of her political coalition to disappear. 4. Look at the direction of her government: accommodation with Ottawa, retreat on Independence, and increasingly metropolitan political priorities. The old Progressive Conservatives are being resurrected. Rural Alberta supplies the seats. Alberta First supplies the volunteers, the enthusiasm and the money. Afterward, leadership lectures us about which convictions must be sacrificed for “electability.” We have seen this before. 5. Janet Brown found 53% of prospective UCP voters backed Option 2, against 40% for remaining in Canada. A reminder that membership itself is a sovereigntist supermajority. We are not outsiders. We are the party’s foundation. If the leadership disagrees with the membership, let the membership decide. 6. The immediate question is political power. Constituency boards. Nominations. Policy conventions. Leadership. Not another year awaiting permission, but action in the institutions that determine the UCP’s future. NOW. Smith should face a serious leadership challenge. @echipiuk and @NadineWellwood are articulate Alberta First voices worth considering that are immediately electable in 2027. If the UCP wants to win in 2027, it must replace Danielle Smith. The members must govern the party, not be managed by it. 7. If the UCP rejects its sovereigntist constituency, Wildrose 2.0 must be considered. Look at the polling maps. From the Peace Country to southern Alberta, Independence has rural strongholds. A rural and rural-suburban party could reshape elections, though vote-splitting carries risks. The UCP cannot presume perpetual ownership of voters whose defining aspiration it rejects. Loyalty is earned, not inherited. 8. Québec offers an instructive example. The PQ won roughly 28% of the vote and about 60 seats, emerging as the largest party. Geography and a divided electoral field matter. But institutions matter more. The PQ survived referendum defeats because it built leaders, policy, and a durable political identity. Alberta First cannot wake up for a referendum, fight furiously, lose, and go back to sleep after willingly giving power to federalists. It must become a permanent political force. 9. Another referendum tomorrow is not the objective. Governing is. For twenty years we have debated the Alberta Firewall: pensions, tax collection, policing, and more provincial authority over immigration and EI. These demand legal work, fiscal plans, legislation, and institutions. Whether through a UCP accountable to its members or a new political vehicle, the question is how Alberta First converts conviction into government. We have waited. We have compromised. We have kicked the can until there is scarcely any road left. Political power, not another promise. Alberta First.