Subhead:Alberta already has a large, developed economy with major agriculture, forestry, petrochemical, technology and energy industries and has a population comparable to independent nations like Croatia, Panama, Iceland and Luxembourg.#
One argument against Alberta independence is that a province of roughly five million people is simply too small to function as a sovereign country.
The numbers don’t support that claim.
As of April 1, 2026, Alberta had an estimated 5,057,077 people, according to Statistics Canada. That would give an independent Alberta a larger population than dozens of existing sovereign states.
Countries such as Croatia, Uruguay, Panama, Georgia, Mongolia, Iceland and Luxembourg all operate as independent nations with smaller populations. Norway and New Zealand are only modestly larger than Alberta today.
And population alone understates Alberta’s economic advantages.
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