This Monday, June 23, voters in the Alberta riding of Olds–Didsbury–Three Hills will head to the polls for a provincial by-election. The district, located in the province’s rural southern region, has historically been a stronghold for the governing United Conservative Party, which won more than 75 per cent of the vote there in 2023.
However, the contest is still one to watch. Cameron Davies, the president of the separatist Republican Party of Alberta, is one of the by-election candidates.
His party traces its roots to the short-lived Buffalo Party, a separatist movement that emerged in the wake of the 2021 federal election. It does not currently hold any seats.
Davies, the party’s leader since April, is a dual Canadian American citizen who recently served in the U.S. Marine Corps and previously worked on political campaigns for the UCP and Wildrose Party.
Under Davies’ leadership, the Republican Party of Alberta has steadily grown its membership. Today, it counts 24,000 registered members and is contesting three by-elections on June 23.
Davies spoke with Canadian Affairs reporter Sam Forster about his vision for Alberta.
SF: What do you see as the biggest problem facing Alberta?
CD: Brainless socialists and spineless conservatives.
SF: Are there particular social ills that are especially concerning to you?
CD: Absolutely. We have a so-called ‘conservative’ premier that has advocated doubling Alberta’s population by 2050.
The UCP leadership wants to make Red Deer, [a city of 100,000], a city of a million people in the next 25 years. It’s mass immigration on steroids that a so-called ‘conservative’ government has been advocating for, here provincially.
They like to blame [mass immigration] on the federal Liberals, but they’re advocating for it just the same. And so there needs to be an immediate end to mass immigration. If Quebec can control their own immigration policy, and if Quebec can have a ministry of integration, why can’t Alberta? We have to fix that immediately.
In conjunction with that, we’ve had a referendum on equalization and we’ve had two conservative-in-name-only premiers in this province that have done not a thing to change the equalization [formula] within the federation.
SF: What would you say are the most significant policy distinctions between the Republican Party of Alberta and the UCP?
CD: Corruption, that’d be a big difference. You’ve got a UCP government that’s often being referred to as the ‘United Corruption Party’ for a reason. You have a government that’s mired in corruption scandal after corruption scandal. You want to talk about investor confidence in our province and what that looks like? The number one impediment to investor confidence is the government that is seen as picking winners and losers, whether that be in procurement or in business.
We have to go back to the foundational principle of getting the government out of the business of business.
SF: Your party pledges to have ‘a binding referendum on Alberta’s unfair and unhealthy relationship with the Confederation experiment, ensuring a future that prioritizes Alberta’s interests.’ What does that mean?
CD: We need a binding referendum, to gauge the will of Albertans as to whether or not they would agree with ending Alberta’s relationship with confederation. Because Canada left Alberta a long time ago.
Many Albertans are just clinging to the only two threads that keep us together, which is at this point hockey and nostalgia of what used to be Canada. Those are pretty thin threads. Canada designed confederation to treat Alberta and the West unfairly. It’s been that way since 1905. We paid the bills of the rest of the country — and our traditions, our way of life and our industries get denigrated and dismissed at every turn.
And so Albertans need to have a vote on whether this system is something they want to continue with.
You know, last year alone we paid the equivalent of the entire health-care bill of Quebec. We have health-care problems in Alberta. We have education problems. We have infrastructure issues. Alberta needs to start putting Alberta first for a change. The rest of Canada doesn’t seem interested in that.
We have a system that puts 75 per cent of the Senate in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes — where one vote in Nova Scotia is worth two in Alberta… We have a system that, by design, is meant to work for Central Canada, not the West.
And I don’t see Central Canada giving up their privileged position in the confederation anytime soon.
SF: Recent polling by Leger indicates most Albertans do not support the idea of leaving Canada. What do you think that means for the trajectory of your party?
CD: I would just remind your readers that we haven’t even started a campaign yet. And the move for Alberta independence is already above 40 per cent in both Alberta and Saskatchewan. We haven’t even begun to have a conversation about what that might look like. We don’t have a government currently in the UCP that seems to be taking it seriously.
I would remind you that before we had an equalization referendum [in 2021], we saw similar numbers. As Albertans became educated on what equalization was, by the time we got to a vote, [62] per cent of Albertans voted in favour of opening up the Constitution and renegotiating equalization.
SF: The Republican Party of Alberta is not affiliated with the Republican Party in the United States. What would the relationship between an Albertan Republican Party and U.S. government be?
CD: As an independent Alberta Republic, we would be free to establish our own free trade. I think that would be something that would benefit Albertans. Beyond that, we can establish our own trade agreements with nations all around the world.
We have a tonne of liquified natural gas that needs to get to market. Right now we’re being held hostage by British Columbia and the Mark Carney government.
SF: Is your party interested in becoming a U.S. state?
CD: No. We’re fighting for an independent Alberta constitutional republic.
SF: What have constituents been telling you at the doors?
CD: We’re hearing that there’s dissatisfaction. The voters who have in past elections checked their box next to the UCP are understanding that they’re just getting more of the same — lots of words, but no action. They’re getting conservative-in-name-only when they vote Conservative. It’s completely unacceptable.
SF: And what would you say to conservative voters who are worried about vote splitting?
CD: The voters in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills are smart enough to know that when they’re being told to vote out of fear, it’s to distract them from the failures of the government.
And it’s sad to see the UCP insult the intelligence of voters who can very clearly see the NDP have never gone above 18 per cent in this riding.
You could have four conservative parties on the ballot in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, and the NDP still wouldn’t win.
SF: What would success look like for your party in this by-election?
CD: In 2008, the Wildrose Party ran a candidate in this exact constituency, and the party had been around for just about a year at that point. And Wildrose got around 20 per cent of the vote in that general election.
Being only a few months old, if we got anything around 20 per cent, I would count that as a measurable outcome that we could build from.
We’re just getting started. Whatever the outcome on June 23, it’ll be a place for us to build from and continue to get our message out, and to get prepared for the next provincial election.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How ironic! This guy is calling socialists brainless! There is very little appetite for separation from Canada in Alberta. When will these people learn. The conservative parties continue to play the blame game on the rest of Canada to hide their own corruption and stupidity.
in every war there are always traitors
Cameron Davies may be a Canadian Citizen but not a “CANADIAN”. He is working for Donald Trump.