Most United Conservative Party riding groups oppose leadership review, averting threat to Danielle Smith

🔮 “That settles it,” the president said in a message to members posted Tuesday. “There will be NO UCP leadership review before our next general election.”

🔮 UCP board candidates must sign declaration to abide by Alberta's vote to stay in Canada Pro-independence activists running for positions say they'll sign, but won't abandon beliefs The United Conservative Party is requiring all candidates for its board positions to sign a declaration that they’ll abide by the Alberta referendum’s clear rejection of separating from Canada, as part of Premier Danielle Smith’s push to assert her party as a federalist movement. Multiple pro-independence advocates seeking to win UCP director posts told CBC News on Tuesday that they’re willing to sign the agreement, but it won’t change their long-term aspirations for an independent or sovereign Alberta. Last week, after Albertans voted by a three-to-one margin to stay in Canada and not pursue an independence referendum, Smith urged the UCP members on both sides of the referendum to avoid splitting apart and unite behind a pro-Canada position. She also announced she expects all election candidates, party board members and riding presidents to abandon separatist advocacy — or “join a different party.” This new declaration that all party board candidates are being asked to sign is the first apparent attempt to put that expectation into writing.

🔮 But aside from soft support, there might be another reason Smith is expressing reluctance to act quickly, even on the immigration questions where she won a majority.

🔮 And could the disappearance of the UCP’s lead in the polls and the NDP’s recent byelection victory in what used to be a cabinet minister’s safe seat be a sign that Albertans have noticed her focus appears to be more on her base than on everyone else?

🔮 Then, their freedom fight turned to independence Chris couldn’t serve diners in his café.

🔮 The tangled what-ifs of Alberta separation — from trade and treaties to currency and disaster costs Report lays out what to expect when you're extracting the province from Canada It’s the big things that might spring to mind first when pondering the consequences of Alberta separation — the potential impacts to the gross domestic product, jobs, wages, debt and such.

🔮 At least 21 additional party constituency groups would need to adopt similar positions to require a special vote on a leader’s future, similar to the internal dissent that ultimately led United Conservatives to prematurely end Jason Kenney’s leadership four years ago.

🔮 Unity or bust: How U.S. tariffs get spun into Alberta's separatism debate One side views trade war as an external threat that will bind us; the other, a sign of Canadian failure A foreign trade threat that has prompted a rally-’round-the-flag moment for Canadians may also have provided a boost for a pro-unity group whose emblem is a modified Canadian flag.

🔮 An independent Alberta's U.S. oil exports would mostly be piped through other provinces Canada and Alberta could reach pipeline shipment deals.