The test applied throughout is whether Alberta’s own revenue after independence could, at the same time:
- maintain the services Albertans already receive,
- assume the federal functions that would become Alberta's responsibility, and
- balance the budget.
This paper is not an economic forecast. It does not model output, employment or trade, and it makes no claim about the size of the economy in any future year. It holds the tax base at its present size, tests what happens if that base contracts, and asks a narrower question than a macroeconomic model does: on the revenue Alberta already raises, can the full range of functions of an independent country be paid for. Where Alberta does not perform a function today, a plausible working assumption is used so that the function can be costed.
The same caution applies to Indigenous matters. The fiscal plan, as with the separate Alberta Transition Plan, carries an estimated equivalent of current federal programme funding as a Day 1 costing basis. It does not settle treaty questions or predetermine the outcome of negotiations with First Nations or Métis governments.
The figures draw on Statistics Canada, the Library of Parliament, Alberta budgets, federal departmental plans and published federal-agency statistics. Source tags in square brackets are explained in Appendix A. Where a figure is derived rather than published, that is identified.
Appendix H explains how this analysis evolved from the 2025 paper The Value of Freedom. The comparison is historical only: no current fiscal total depends on figures from that paper. The figures are estimates designed to determine fiscal viability rather than point-estimate forecasts. Many estimates are presented as good to within a range reflecting uncertainty of plus/minus 10%. They are meant to settle a question of scale — is there enough money, or is there not — rather than to balance to the penny.
This document does not mix three different kinds of spending
- Annual operating costs: money required every year to run a service.
- One-time transition or capital costs: money spent once to build systems, acquire equipment or complete the transition.
- Payments to citizens: money that already reaches Albertans today and would continue to reach them, sometimes from a different payer.
They are kept separate so that one-time costs are not mistaken for annual spending, and payments to citizens are not mistaken for government administration.
Method
start with the revenue Albertans already generate,
remove federal transfers that would stop,
add the federal functions Alberta would inherit, and
add an allowance for sovereign functions which a new country needs.
This paper assumes transition occurs over about 36 months at a one-time cost of approximately C$4.96 billion [BA], then asks what the country looks like once that window has closed. The Alberta Transition Plan remains a separate document, and the supporting analysis that underpins it governs the transition side. Where this paper is itself the source — the revenue a sovereign Alberta raises, the steady-state cost of functions Alberta does not perform today, and the tests applied to both — the supporting analysis cites it.
