Riding the Unity Bus to rally support for Canada in Alberta

WAINWRIGHT, Alta. — The Unity Bus arrives right on time, pulling into a parking lot on the edge of this town of about 6,600 people close to the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. As the vehicle slows to a halt, resplendent in its patriotic red-and-white paint, a small group of supporters stand waiting, decked in their own maple leaf garb.

The Unity Bus’s doors open and former Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk bounds to the ground. The supporters, volunteers with Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian campaign, welcome him with applause; he greets them with open arms. He knows many by name, having been to Wainwright four times; some of them fondly call him “the boss.”

“Do you need some stickers?” he asks. “Do you need some swag to give away?”

It’s a chilly Thanksgiving Monday morning on the eastern edge of Alberta. A sharp wind nips at exposed skin and drab grey clouds hang low in the sky. Such weather does not encourage high spirits, but Lukaszuk and these volunteers can’t afford to let theirs falter: in just one week, on Oct. 19, Albertans will vote on a historic question on whether to remain in Canada.

So the mood, in this Wainwright parking lot, is cautiously elated. The volunteers are glad to see a journalist from Winnipeg out to observe the Unity Bus visit: “Manitobans should see the work Thomas is doing,” one volunteer says, cheerfully. “And they should see that Albertans want to stay in Canada.”

The referendum is, in itself, a snapshot of just how strange the political jockeying around separatism has been. Chief among the 10 questions voters will answer on Monday is whether Alberta should remain in Canada, or whether the province should start a legal process to hold another referendum on whether to leave Canada.

Despite the intensity of the debate, there’s little evidence that Albertans, as a whole, are gunning to leave Canada. Support for separatism has never surpassed a third of voters, and may have slipped in recent months; a September poll from Janet Brown Opinion Research found just 23 per cent of Albertans planned to vote to move towards independence.

Those numbers haven’t deterred separatist leaders from rousing their base. Lawn signs planted by separatist campaigns dot the 200-kilometre highway that runs between Wainwright and Edmonton. At the corner of one golden-grassed farm field, a large banner urges drivers to choose “Freedom and Prosperty Through Independence.”

“I’m one of the proudest Canadians you’ll ever find, and this is a way of paying it back.”

Lukaszuk’s work, in a way, is to give the pro-Canadian side the same sense of momentum. He founded Forever Canadian in early 2025, as the separatist movement began to gather steam in Alberta; to take the campaign province-wide, he bought a little-driven 33-year-old RV for $3,000, tuned it up, and painted it in joyfully Canadian colours.

Since then, he has rolled back and forth across Alberta, pausing in countless small towns to rally locals to the cause. Forever Canadian has attracted over 18,000 volunteers, who have helped hand out over 100,000 lawn signs. On average, he spends about 10 days on the road for every one at home in Edmonton, with the RV serving as a mobile campaign office.

What made Lukaszuk decide to devote so much of his life to the campaign?

“Probably insanity,” he says, with a laugh.

In fact, he continues, the motivation is more deeply personal. Lukaszuk was born in Poland in 1969, during the Communist era. When he was seven years old his father, a seaman, defected to Canada; five years later, the rest of the family was able to follow, as his mother was given just 48 hours to pack up her two sons and head to Canada.

That twist of fate sent Lukaszuk on a path to an outspoken and successful political career. Starting in 2001, he spent 14 years as a Progressive Conservative MLA for his Edmonton riding, served in the provincial cabinet, and in 2012 was named deputy to then-premier Alison Redford.

“Canada embraced my family, and gave us an opportunity to create a new life,” he says. “So now, I’m one of the proudest Canadians you’ll ever find, and this is a way of paying it back. There’s a sort of civic duty, a responsibility. If not you, then who, right? I was hoping somebody else would do it, but no one was stepping up, so I stepped up.

“But I never expected this to become a movement, because it truly is a movement. The biggest one in Alberta.”

On Lukaszuk’s journeys across the province, he’s heard a great deal about what Albertans are feeling. As the referendum day draws closer, people seem to be more engaged, he says, but also more frustrated. The most common phrase he encounters is one of exasperated disbelief: “I can’t believe we actually have to do this.”

Whatever happens in Monday’s vote, the scars it’s etched on Alberta’s social fabric may prove difficult to heal. On Sunday, Lukaszuk took the Unity Bus to Medicine Hat and another small town, where locals mentioned they decided not to invite some separatist relatives to Thanksgiving dinner, to avoid fights. Some neighbours have stopped talking entirely.

“There’s nothing that can’t be worked out.”

Among the supporters who came to see Lukaszuk is a man named Leonard, who declined to give his last name. Attached to the back of his truck is a wooden trailer, painted with a sharp message to Alberta premier Danielle Smith and a rallying cry: “Our Home, Our Province, Our Country, Our Future, Oh! Canada.”

He painted a similar signboard, which he posted by the parking lot of the Wal-Mart across the street.

Leonard was born and raised near Wainwright; his father, who came here from England as a baby, was a “great believer” in Canadian confederation and raised his children the same. It pains Leonard even to imagine a future where his father’s grave wouldn’t be on Canadian soil.

Many of Leonard’s oldest friends are separatists. Since the referendum began gathering steam, they haven’t been as close as they used to be; they can’t understand why he’s so passionate about remaining in Canada. One friend challenged Leonard to come to one of the separatist organizing meetings, pledging to go to a pro-Canadian one in return.

“I said, ‘we don’t have one,’” Leonard says. “We don’t meet. That doesn’t compute to him. He can’t figure out, well, how can we do (these campaigns) if we’re not meeting and gathering together and bolstering all these ideas? He doesn’t understand that we’re just very vigorous on our own.”

For many, this schism has been incredibly painful. In the parking lot, Dave Bakewell helps tend to a folding table covered in free Forever Canadian buttons, bumper stickers, and window decals. He was one of the first volunteers in this town. Now, as he talks about the moment his province faces, he has to pause as his voice wells with emotion.

It makes him mad, he says at last. He understands the separatists are angry too, and have been for decades.

“But there’s nothing that can’t be worked out,” he says — as part of Canada.

There are no separatists at this Unity Bus stop in Wainwright, perhaps because of the holiday. Lukaszuk is mildly surprised: there are usually some who come out, ready to follow his bus around. While a few have been openly hostile — Lukaszuk has gotten death threats — most, he says, are interested in respectful conversation. He tries to find common ground.

Above all, he says, many Albertans want to get back to normal. No matter what Monday brings, that may not happen.

“I don’t think it’ll ever go back to what things were like before,” Lukaszuk says. “We just went through a massive shift in our international relations, particularly with the United States. That relationship will never return to what it was. Hopefully we’ll repair it, but it’ll be different. It’ll be more cautious, less trusting moving forward.

“And it’ll take time to heal the wounds between Albertans. Now there are two different flags being flown, and everybody knows who’s who, right? So to rebuild that community and that trust again will take a long time.”

He pauses.

“At the same time, you know, some of the separatists bring up some valid points. There are issues in Canada that need to be addressed — but not through separation, of course. So we will need some kind of a reconciliation, some kind of a reckoning. So it’s a lot of work ahead of us.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca