Alberta lawyer Jeffrey Rath says a group of Albertans with connections in Washington are heading south to talk to the Trump administration about the province joining the US.

President Donald Trump has been suggesting for months Canadians would be better off if the US annexed its northern neighbour as its 51st state.

Canadian politicians, both Liberal and Conservative, federal and provincial, have balked at the notion, and have insisted Canada will never become the 51st state.

Yet, Trump has persisted.

The idea meanwhile has percolated among Canadians, with many vehement the president would be so bold as to “threaten our sovereignty” — while others, particularly Albertans, jaded by the governance of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals for the last 10 years, have expressed a growing curiosity.

Rath, representatives from the Alberta Prosperity Project and a number of well-known Albertans are working on a framework to discuss with Trump’s administration about pursuing Alberta independence or Alberta statehood — meaning the province would become either its own independent state or become part of the US.

Rath told the Western Standard the politicians in Ottawa are so out of touch they “don’t even know where their energy comes from.”

“These people actually think that we can cut off the oil to the United States, without realizing that all the oil that goes into eastern Canada comes up through from the States through Line 9,” he said,

“So that by cutting off Alberta oil to the states, they’re the ones that are literally going to be cutting off oil to Ontario.”

“We’re governed by people in Ottawa that don’t even know where their own oil and gas comes from, and then, after blocking Energy East for years and blocking internal pipelines for years, now, our so called Climate Change Minister [Steven] Guilbeault suddenly realizes that the Americans can cut off the heating oil to his house , and now wants an energy pipeline.”

“Now it’s a matter of national priority.”

“There’s a lot of us in Alberta that don’t want to be associated with the colossal level of stupidity coming out of Ottawa right now, or, for that matter, Toronto. I mean, [Ontario Premier] Doug Ford was throwing a little tantrum this morning over the tariffs, saying that he’s going to cut off energy to the United States. Well, how’s he going to do that?”

“So you’re going to shut down some power grids and cause a massive blackout. And in the eastern United States, that doesn’t solve anything.”

Rath said this is where the Alberta delegation idea sprang from — “there’s a lot of us that are just completely fed up with being governed by idiots,” he said.

It’s a “fact-finding mission,” Rath explained, to “determine what the appetite is in Washington, in the Trump administration, to support either Alberta independence or Alberta statehood.”

“We’re at a tipping point in history where Alberta, I think, has a unique opportunity to enter into a dialogue with an American administration about either becoming independent with the support of the United States, or joining the United States as an American state.”

“It’s all very preliminary at this point,” added Rath, declining to say how many people were involved in the delegation, but noting the Alberta Prosperity Project itself over the years has had “thousands and thousands of members.”

“The best way to put it is that I think that there is quite a bit of interest in the United States and exploring various options with regard to Alberta sovereignty or statehood.”

Rath says the “so-called Laurentian elites literally treat us as a colony of Eastern Canada, who think that they can, in response to a tariff war that they themselves created, that they can then hold Albertans hostage by threatening everybody’s livelihoods with export tariffs or other harmful economic measures aimed at the Alberta oil and gas industry.”

“Trudeau took a bunch of half-hearted, half-assed measures that he thought would placate President Trump,” said Rath, calling out the prime minister for his failure to meet NATO defence spending targets, something Trump has mentioned on multiple occasions.

“Trudeau could start funding our NATO commitment to the full amount required. Instead of committing $20 billion to Canadian national defense, he’s committing $40 billion to an electric train.”

Rath says Ottawa’s gross failure to meet NATO’s 2% of GDP defence spending targets “undercuts any claims that we have to international sovereignty.”

“When you think about it, we’re incapable of defending ourselves. We refuse to even meet our international defense commitments, because we hide underneath the US umbrella.”

“We just can’t do it anymore as a people and as a province, we either need to be independent or we need to join the United States, because Canada is no longer viable as a country.”

Rath says that if Alberta were to be removed from Canada, the Canadian dollar “is going to become worthless.”

“It’s gonna become a Canadian peso,” said Rath.

“I would imagine that the currency of the state of Alberta would likely be the US dollar, which would make trade so much easier between Alberta and the US. And we’d be looking for economic integration, as an independent state, with the United States.”

“The structural deficits of Canadian federalism are never going to be cured under the present shape of the Canadian constitution.”

Rath and the Albertan delegation don’t have much hope in Tory leader Pierre Poilievre either. He says the opposition leader is just like the rest of the Laurentian elite politicians in Ottawa.

“Don’t think for a minute that Pierre Poilievre is going to address the structural deficits of Canadian federalism, or stop sending $14 billion a year to Quebec so that Quebec can run surplus budgets at Alberta’s expense.”

“Poilievre is not going to save Alberta.”

“He’s another federal politician looking to get elected with the support of Albertans to continue to run Canada for the benefit of central Canada.”

“And even in the context of his messaging with regard to the current tariffs, Poilievre has not come out and said, ‘You know, everybody needs to focus on the fact that President Trump is right.’”

“Poilievre will never admit Trump is right, because there are so many people in Toronto and Quebec that suffer from Trump derangement syndrome that he knows that if he were to say anything about Trump being right, he would never get elected, and then we’d end up with Mark Carney as prime minister.”

“So, with Poilievre, we’re really just looking at more of the same.”