This report estimates the cost of Alberta transitioning from a province to a country. The bottom line is that the one-time cost of the transition is estimated at approximately C$5.0 billion, spread over roughly three years — an average of about C$1.65 billion per year during the transition. Once the transition is complete, the additional permanent cost of operating the functions of a sovereign state is estimated at approximately C$3.63 billion per year. These figures should not be confused with pensions, benefits and other payments made directly to Albertans, or with federal transfers Alberta currently receives and would need to replace through its own revenues after independence. Those are separate fiscal flows, not additional transition costs.
What this number does not include
This is the cost of establishing the machinery of sovereign government. It does not include any negotiated settlement of federal debt or federal assets; contingent currency or liquidity support; defence equipment, since no armament, vehicles or platforms are costed in this window; federal programme spending in Alberta on First Nations and Metis services, in the order of C$3.1 billion to C$3.8 billion a year; or any obligation whose allocation depends on agreements not yet made. Every one of these is disclosed in this report and recognised at zero rather than estimated, in the domain statement that owns it.
The report sets out, domain by domain across twenty budget statements, what it would cost to stand up the functions of a sovereign state in Alberta and what Alberta would need to raise each year once the federal tier is gone.
It does not set long-term policy. Tax rates, programme design and the shape of government beyond the transition are decisions for the first legislature and for the people of Alberta. Where a costing cannot be done without assuming a policy, the assumption is stated as an assumption and identified as a decision still to be taken.
It does not forecast the economy. There is no projection of output, employment or trade, and no claim about the size of Alberta’s economy in any future year. The question asked here is narrower: what does the transition cost, what does it cost to operate the functions of a sovereign state, and what must be raised to pay for the state on the other side of the transition?
How to read the figures
A one-time cost, a recurring cost and a payment to a member of the public are three different things, and this report never adds them together. Reading them as one number is the single most likely way to misread this document.
A one-time cost is spent once and stops. A recurring cost is the annual price of running a function permanently. A payout is money reaching a person — a pension, a benefit, a producer payment — which is not the cost of government, and which does not become cheaper or dearer by being administered from Edmonton rather than Ottawa.
Figures are in Canadian dollars at a fiscal 2026-27 price base. Dates are from the date of independence: ID-6 months is six months before it, ID+24 months two years after. No date is assumed here; ID follows a negotiated settlement.
The figures
Nothing here is counted twice. Continuing provincial spending once as money spent, once as the existing provincial revenue that already pays for it — so it nets to zero and never reaches the taxation line. Fee-recovered regulatory cost behaves the same way.
What Alberta taxation must raise is the added running cost, the payouts, and the federal transfers that stop, less the dedicated revenue that continues.
Federal transfers ceasing are shown because the money stops, not because a cost begins. The Canada Health Transfer, the Canada Social Transfer and the health bilaterals are revenue Alberta receives today and would no longer receive, so they must be raised rather than replaced.
The workforce
The report estimates that Alberta would need about 14,000 new permanent employees to carry out the functions of a sovereign country, along with approximately 1,300 temporary employees needed only during the transition. The defence-specific estimate also includes a territorial reserve of about 1,800 members.
Of the 14,000 permanent positions, about 6,200 are identified in detail across the different areas of government and about 400 more are stated as a domain total with no published breakdown behind them. The remaining roughly 7,500 positions are concentrated in four major areas — policing and corrections, border services, the revenue authority and immigration. In those areas, the report provides an overall staffing estimate rather than breaking the positions down job by job. These staffing estimates were developed from the functions Alberta would need to perform as a country; they were not simply calculated by taking a share of current federal government spending or staffing.
The largest new workforces would be in policing and corrections, border services, social programme delivery and the revenue authority. These are areas where Alberta would need to build significant new capacity because the functions are currently performed mainly by the federal government. As a result, they account for much of both the new staffing and the ongoing cost of operating as a sovereign country.
One-time independence settlement costs are separate
This report does not attempt to predict the financial terms of a future negotiated settlement between Alberta and Canada. For that reason, no amount is included in the budget for a possible Alberta share of the existing federal debt. The federal debt is shown as zero for purposes of this costing exercise, as are any federal assets that Alberta might receive as part of a settlement.
That does not mean the report assumes Alberta would owe nothing, nor does it take a position on what Alberta should accept in negotiations. It simply reflects the purpose of this paper. This report is intended to answer a narrower question: what would it cost Alberta to build and operate the functions it would need as a sovereign country? The amount of federal debt Alberta might assume, the federal assets it might receive in return, and the terms of any financial settlement would all be matters for future negotiations. Until those negotiations occur, there is no reliable number to put into the budget.
Including a speculative debt figure would therefore make the transition-cost estimate less useful rather than more accurate. Any assumed debt number would have to be matched against assumptions about the federal assets, property, infrastructure, pension interests and other financial rights that might also form part of a negotiated settlement. Because none of those outcomes is known, this report keeps them outside the transition budget and identifies them separately as matters still to be resolved.
The same approach is taken with federal spending in Alberta on First Nations and Métis programmes, currently estimated in this report at approximately C$3.1 billion to C$3.8 billion a year. That amount is identified for the reader but is not added to the transition budget. Whether Alberta would ultimately assume responsibility for any of that spending would depend on future discussions and agreements with individual First Nations and Métis governments, each proceeding on its own terms and timeline.
Other possible financial commitments are treated in the same way. Potential requirements such as emergency liquidity support, currency support and standby financial facilities are identified and disclosed, but no amount is included in the budget unless there is a sound basis for estimating an actual cost. The objective is to distinguish between costs that can reasonably be estimated today and possible future obligations whose amount will depend on decisions or negotiations that have not yet occurred.
What the report does not claim
That the estimates are precise. They are built to settle a question of scale, and where a figure is uncertain it is given as a range with the range explained.
That nothing has been left out. Where the evidence to cost something does not exist, the report says so rather than filling the gap. The postal figures are the least firm in the budget and are stated as such.
That the transition is free or cheap. It is a defined programme with a defined cost, set out to be checked line by line.
Where the detail sits
Each of the twenty budget statements is filed separately and carries its own figures, its own build, its own assumptions and its own disclosed exposures. Beneath them sits the supporting analysis behind the Alberta Transition Plan, which is the source material for everything on the transition side and which governs where it and this report differ.
Forward to Freedom is the companion question. This report asks what the transition costs; Forward to Freedom asks whether a sovereign Alberta raises enough to pay for the functions of a state once the transition has closed. Where a function appears in both, this report carries the transition provision and Forward to Freedom carries the mature cost. They are two stages of one obligation, not two estimates of the same thing.
The bottom line
The bottom line is that this report estimates it would cost approximately C$5 billion in one-time spending to transition Alberta from a province to a country. That spending would be spread over roughly three years — an average of about C$1.65 billion per year — and includes the new systems, equipment, institutions and other work needed to take over the functions of a sovereign country. Once the transition is complete, those one-time costs end.
The C$5 billion figure is the answer to the central question this report asks: what would it cost to make the transition? It should not be confused with the separate ongoing costs of running a country, payments such as pensions and benefits that go directly to Albertans, or federal transfers that Alberta currently receives. Those are different financial issues and are addressed in a separate report: ‘Forward to Freedom’. The estimated one-time cost of the transition itself is approximately C$5 billion.
The figures in this report are written to be checked. The workbook behind them is published alongside it.
