Adios, Cowgirl

As dawn broke over a united country the Canadian dollar surged a half-point. The move made it the best-performing currency among western countries on Tuesday, hiking .44% against the greenback.

Before the Big Vote last night in Alberta the loonie had weakened down into then 69-cent US range. Today it was well above 71, also given a tail win by another surge in oil prices. Nobody had seriously expected the yahoos to win, but the clear, decisive, unequivocal squishing of the rebel cause was catalyst for buying the Canadian dollar.

Meanwhile markets have jumped the odds of a Bank of Canada rate hike next week to 80%. With crude surging past a hundred bucks again and the potential economic disaster of an Alberta split off the table, the CB can focus on the real threat. Inflation. So it looks like a quarter-point bump on the 28th. Then more.

So what did it really mean that 76% of Albertans told then rural maple MAGAs to shove off?

It’s a big win for Mark Carney. His message of defiance against US aggression and the new federal kick-ass agenda of nation-building drowned the whines and moans of the secessionists. We have enough of an issue dealing with Trump, without the cowboy backstabbers. Carney is now the most respected elected leader in most of the world. This win was his, just as it was Cowgirl’s loss.

The referendum result also shows Western alienation is stagnant and as much a rump cause as it’s been for decades. Polls have shown for years that two in ten Albertans hate the East (especially Quebec) and think they could be richer without them. The current noisy campaign didn’t move the needle or convince other Albertans to swell their ranks – remarkable, given that there are separatists in the provincial government and the premier herself gave them special attention.

The vote is excellent news for the O&G sector, capital markets, industry groups and major corps. This will enhance confidence, unleash investment dollars that have been sitting on the sideline and attract international players, now that America is capricious, volatile and unreliable and Canada looks stable.

For the housing market in Calgary and Edmonton, the outcome could not have been better. Those modern, attractive cities offer some of the best real estate value in Canada with homes priced at about 50% of the insane levels of Toronto and Vancouver. With this ridiculous contest over, living near the Bow or North Saskatchewan holds even more appeal.

For the governing United Conservative Party, there is unity no longer. It caved to the secessionist minority of Trump-friendly deplorables within its ranks, making the big mistake of bringing the fringe into the mainstream. Now there’s a serious rural-urban split and after being emboldened. the rebels are unlikely to go away or be silenced. That party is in serious trouble.

So is Cowgirl. This referendum was Danielle Snith’s personal creation. While only a quarter of Albertans even wanting to talk about an indy Alberta, over 50% of her base is secessionist. She changed the rules for public petitioning to make it easier for them to gain a referendum. And she forced the entire country to go through this senseless, dangerous exercise at the worst possible time, so she could retain internal party support.

It didn’t work. Now the rebels feel cheated. The population in general turned its back. Carney called her out. The opposition NDP are pumped. Even Pierre Poilievre won’t share a stage with her. Smith will go down as the only premier – when we were most under threat of annexation and economic destruction by the autocratic American president – who cozied up to Trump. She went to Mar-a-Lago. She took selfies with him. She refused unity with the other Canadian leaders as they fought tariffs. She took no action when the rebels met with US State Department officials.

She said she was a federalist while empowering the separatists. She tried to play us all. She lost.

So it’s an even better country today.

And that was hard to imagine.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2026/10/20/adios-cowgirl/