The UCP is a separatist party. There, we said it.

The premier of Alberta has cleared her throat and made it known that she hasn’t (yet) penned her name to any petition calling for separating from Canada. Whew, that’s good, no?

Except, wait. Just the fact that this was a CBC headline yesterday demonstrates how long it has remained weirdly unclear whether Smith is okay with the federation going to hell.

She continues to claim she’s for a “sovereign” Alberta in a “unified” Canada, whatever that means. Writing in The Tyee, David Climenhaga gives the hook to all the tap dancing: “If you don’t understand by now that the United Conservative Party led by Danielle Smith is a separatist party, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

Climenhaga quotes well-connected Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid who wrote: “At the top level of the UCP they’re pondering whether to hold a vote on the party turning separatist.” Says Climenhaga: “Fair enough. They should.”

Because, well… “As is by now well known, party members and officials who are also Alberta Prosperity Project separatists are making regular visits to Washington to plot Canada’s destruction with unnamed members of the Donald Trump administration.” This as 19 UCP MLAs reportedly support the separatist petition and Smith has let it be known that’s fine with her.

I’m Tyee editor-in-chief David Beers, glad to be here on The Edge of all things Alberta politics.

Speaking of the business of manufacturing populist revolts, also in The Tyee this week Mitchell Anderson traces how Britain’s Brexit boosters drew inspiration from Preston Manning’s rebellious Reform Party. Today, if an election were held, Reform UK might just win.

Meanwhile, Canada’s News Forum TV broadcaster is expanding, including opening a bureau in Calgary. Christopher Holcroft reveals its role as megaphone for the U.S. dark money-backed libertarian Atlas Network and how federal regulators helped expand its reach.

We also shared a news report from Pincher Creek’s Shootin’ the Breeze saying that country music star Corb Lund’s efforts to launch his own citizen initiative petition drive has been approved. It’s against UCP-backed coal mining in the previously protected eastern slopes of the Rockies.

This week’s lesson seems to be that petitions have consequences. Choose wisely. Please, don’t drink and sign.