This piece is part of our Forum of Federations Series on National Unity and Canadian Federalism.

By David Cameron

September 5, 2026

The best answer to the question of whether the Confederation bargain is still holding is: We’ll see.

With secession once again an issue in two of Canada’s provinces, national unity is back on the table again, after a blessed hiatus of three decades.

Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta, is committed to putting the following question to the province’s voters in the autumn: Should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada? A vote in favour could lead to a straight-up vote on secession in a second referendum, possibly as early as the spring of 2027.

In Quebec, voters go to the polls in a general election on October 5th. If the Parti Québécois (PQ) takes power – a real possibility as of this writing – the party has committed to holding a referendum on sovereignty, an election promise recently amended to preclude a referendum while Donald Trump is still in office, which could still mean during the PQ’s first term.

While public opinion polls in both Quebec and Alberta show support for independence at 20-30 per cent, the prudent observer is haunted by the 2016 Brexit vote, which most analysts at the time – including the unlamented UK Prime Minister of the day, David Cameron (no relation) – thought would not succeed.

And domestically, when Parizeau was elected, most Quebecers did not want a referendum, but a change of government. However, when the referendum was called anyway, almost 94% of the population participated and 49.42% cast their vote in favour.

These experiences should counsel patriotic Canadians against over-confidence.

So, if we place the discussion in the frame of threats to national unity, the country seems vulnerable. While the immediate prospect of a Quebec referendum based on an election mandate now bears an asterisk, it is not reassuring to have two provinces at the same time considering the merits of separation. A case can be made on this basis that the constitutional framework established in 1867 is indeed fraying.

Our long history of coping, ultimately successfully, with severe national-unity crises, sometimes in the form of acute regional alienation, sometimes in the shape of convulsions over conscription in the two World Wars, sometimes as referendums on sovereignty, as in 1980 and 1995, suggests that the country has more unity sinew than might seem to be the case at first glance.

We currently have a national government with unusually wide reach and legitimacy, and a menacing neighbour to the south who forcefully reminds us almost daily why it makes sense to hang together. The country has proven itself to have real strengths, even if it is not its practice to identify and celebrate them, nor its custom to flaunt them.

But let’s look more intently at the three seismic forces in Canada that could, in principle, knock the country off its foundations: regional alienation; the status of Quebec in Canada; and relations between Indigenous peoples in Canada and the rest of the population.

Regional Alienation

The longstanding phenomenon of regional alienation in Canada is at least for now chiefly evident in Alberta, with some overlap in Saskatchewan, though recent surveys from Pollara and Environics show that it has been on the wane since Mark Carney took office. With a political economy noticeably distinct from that of the rest of the country, many Albertans sense that they are misunderstood and underappreciated by their compatriots.

Other Canadians may take the view that this is the alienation of the privileged, coming from a province that has the highest per capita income level among provinces, but it is real for all that. If your material wellbeing is reliant on a resource that is in principle finite, that consciousness will shape your outlook and generate anger and frustration if you believe that national policy and the terms of the Confederation bargain are framed to obstruct your economic aspirations.

While there has clearly been evidence in history to support this perception, the policies of the current federal government are changing the facts on the ground. The détente between Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney rests on a shift of the federal government to the centre-right, as reflected in its commitment to major national infrastructure projects, and specifically to pipelines carrying more Alberta oil and gas to tidewater.

Mr. Carney’s commitment to tackling climate change appears to have diminished since he became Prime Minister. Alberta separatists are the pointy end of regional alienation, but it seems likely that their already limited popular appeal will be further curtailed by Ottawa’s positive response to the province’s concerns. So far, Mark Carney’s national-unity strategy vis-à-vis Alberta is to do things rather than say things and it appears to have been quite effective. It may allow the premier of Alberta to get out of the corner she has painted herself into.

The Status of Quebec

Canada has enjoyed more than a generation of relative calm in its relations with Quebec. This is owing no doubt to several factors, among them: a deep unwillingness on all sides to re-engage with the high-stakes, angst-creating politics of the previous constitutional/referendum era; and the fact that since 1998 – except for 18 months during 2012-14 – Quebec has been ruled by a party that was either federalist or committed to not holding a referendum.

The clear reluctance of Ottawa to seriously challenge the Government of Quebec on some of its constitutionally debatable policy initiatives has underscored the lack of appetite for a return to the days of pitched constitutional battles.

This period has been marked not by federal efforts to integrate Quebec more fully into the Canadian federation, but by tolerating Quebec’s determination to build a more distinct society in language use and cultural practices, even if the initiatives flout or appear to flout the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

There seems to be a widespread acceptance of the fact that there are somewhat different world views within the French- and English-language communities in Canada. The idea that Quebec is a distinct society, which was rejected forcefully by English-speaking Canada during the Meech Lake constitutional process, is now accepted as the result of a kind of  ‘natural’ evolution.

PQ success in the next provincial election would almost certainly bring this era of relative tranquillity to an end, with what consequences it is impossible to forecast.

The Road to Reconciliation

Canada has undergone a remarkable transformation since 1969, when the Pierre Trudeau government’s White Paper (Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy) proposing the assimilation of Indigenous Peoples into the general population was decisively rejected by the Canadian Indigenous community.

Partly as a result of that sobering experience, Indigenous Peoples began articulating and communicating their unique history, their lengthy experience of injustice and neglect in Canada, and their distinctive aspirations, which gradually increased the awareness of these issues among other Canadians.

In the constitutional talks of the next few decades, Indigenous leaders successfully pushed for a seat at the table and became key constitutional actors in their own right. They effectively negotiated the inclusion of Section 35 in the 1982 Constitution, dealing with the “rights of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada.” This provision gave courts a significant role in addressing Indigenous issues and began a stream of jurisprudence that has affirmed, clarified and effectively expanded Indigenous rights.

The country has begun to redress historic wrongs. Nunavut was created in 1999; the first jurisdiction composed of a majority Indigenous population. With inquiries such as the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (established in 1991) and especially the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (established 2016), together with the discovery of Indigenous children’s unmarked graves at residential schools, the recognition of many Canadians that this was a stain on the nation that needed to be addressed grew rapidly.

This historic process of change – really, the beginning of the reconciliation journey – is gradually altering the terms upon which Confederation rests. It is focused on inserting a new partner into the constitutional bargain, not on dismembering the federation. The potential long-term implications of this are radical. Over time, it could lead to a systematic re-conceptualization of the Canadian federal bargain and indeed, of the nation itself.

A Capacity to Accommodate Change

Where do things stand heading into what could be a disruptive autumn of 2026? In 1867, Confederation brought several British North America communities together for the first time. It was not perfect; it was not complete; it obviously was not conceived in function of a future that could not be foretold. But Confederation had embedded within it a growth principle, a dynamic capacity to accommodate change.

Not all the colonial societies accepted the arrangement that was on offer in 1867. But to the four that did — Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick — were added six more over time, plus territories whose number and boundaries have been altered as recently as 1999. Now, the Canadian Confederation comprehends the entire top half of North America, barring Alaska, with the second largest land mass in the world.

Its population of not much more than three million in the mid-19^th century is now 40 million. What was an agrarian society is today intensely urban. Quebec has taken control of its destiny, so far within Confederation. Canada assumed its full membership in the family of nations in the course of fighting two world wars. To our parliamentary system has been added a constitutional Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

All of this and more has taken place within the constitutional framework a group of Victorian politicians put together in the middle of the 19^th century. So far, that framework has served us well. Today, it is being tested, perhaps as never before. The seismic forces within Canada are working themselves out in a highly volatile world.

We are living in a dangerous neighbourhood now. The once-friendly superpower to our south has become unpredictable and malign. The assumptions that shaped the post-war world are crumbling. Climate change is altering Canada’s geopolitical realities. With the world we knew disappearing, Canada faces a tangle of existential issues. How Canadians respond will depend decisively on the quality of our leadership and our unflagging capacity to act with common purpose.

David Cameron, C.M., is a respected federalism and constitutional scholar, University of Toronto Professor of Political Science and fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.