This summer, for the first time in my life, I was in a parade. I was walking down the hill to Pincher Creek’s Main Street to watch the summer fair-days parade when I got a call on my cell. People I knew had put together a Forever Canadian parade entry. Would I like to be part of it? Well of course I would.
The only problem was that I was quite drably dressed. A friend had given me a Forever Canadian sweatshirt for Christmas, so I ran home and put it on. The sweatshirt is black with a nice red maple leaf. Quite heavy and thick. It was 30 above that day. Ah, what the hell.
Traditionally our town’s parade forms up at the west end of Main Street. I walked quickly in that direction. There were masses of vehicles, animals, floats, people. There was a system of organization involved, and I couldn’t make sense of it. Before I found anything to do with Forever Canadian, however, I did happen upon the separatist float. I went toward it, thinking that maybe the parade organizers had put the two conflicting entries together. But that wasn’t the case. The separatism float was elaborate: lots of shiny blue and yellow. The nearest other float I could see represented the area’s portable-toilet rental business, But where the blazes was Forever Canadian?
Finally I bumped into one of our people and he led me to our group. A cute vintage automobile had the word UNITY in big red letters across its grill. It would bring up the rear. At the front we’d have a handsome bay horse. The woman who owned this big fellow would ride him and carry a Canada flag. The rest of us would walk. We had pins and ribbons to hand out.
The only drawback was that I was getting mighty hot in my sweatshirt. The parade was also not moving. One of our people went and checked. Turned out that the separatists had decided not to put up with their float’s proximity to the portable-toilet rental float. They smelled a federalist plot. To get the parade moving, the marshal gave the separatists a new placement. When the parade finally started, the separatists were well ahead of the federalists, so they were happy.
About 15 minutes in, I had an epiphany. The parade was like Alberta’s referendum on separation.
Our group hadn’t talked much about what we would do during the parade, besides hand out clip-on flags and ribbons. Each of us would improvise. I chose to walk down Main Street’s south side, because it was the side my family always sits on, in front of the historic Fox Theatre. I noticed that the closer I walked to the parade watchers, the more interaction and response I got. Mostly I just grinned and pointed and pumped my sign up and down.
It started going really well. Many people were cheering our horse and rider and the big Canadian flag. People loved our UNITY car.
About 15 minutes into this, I had an epiphany. It occurred to me that the parade was like the referendum on separation that was coming up. The responses that we Forever Canadian folks got in the parade today would surely reflect how Albertans felt about Canada and how they would vote.
My findings:
The parade was moving too fast for me to actually count heads and hands, but the people cheering Forever Canadian struck me as being more than half the people on my side of Main Street. Most of the children were cheering for us and, of the adults, most of the women were clapping and smiling and otherwise displaying a positive bent. At some point we all sang “O Canada.”
Those whose body language was negative were almost all men. Not all of the men I saw were negative, but a significant number were glowering.
And I will always remember one older woman who stood alone as we walked by. Her face was not angry but it was definitely not happy. She moved her face back and forth: a strong, non-verbal “No.” Her look was chilling, as I’m sure she intended it to be.
Other findings. The First Nations families along the route seemed to be for us. Most of the school-age children were. Most of the elderly people were.
Let me be the first to say that my findings are not statistical; not scientific in any way. Not a poll. Just a set of feelings. But when we were done I felt a lot better about the situation of my locale and my province as we hurtled toward the fall and the referendum that Danielle Smith and the UCP insisted we stage. I know they’ll do everything they can, within and outside the rules, to generate an anti-Canada result.
After the parade, when I compared notes with others in the Forever Canadian group, their feelings were the same as mine: that more in our town were for Canada than against. Still, as I write this, more than a month later, I’m worried. Even though it’s just a referendum on whether or not to have another referendum, it’s a crazy risk to take.
Fred Stenson has published more than 20 books. His newest novel is Carpenter Creek (Thistledown Press, 2026).
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