A new poll conducted by COMPAS Research for the Financial Post shows that Canada’s business community believes that separatist support in the province may be on the rise.

This week’s web poll of Canadian CEO’s and business leaders indicates that there is growing concern that high oil prices and Alberta’s growing economic strength may foster further divisions within Confederation:

According to most respondents, a major fallout from Alberta’s petrol wealth will be increased conflict between Edmonton and Ottawa… The panel as a whole assigns a 70% probability to this taking place. The panel assigns an approximately 50% probability to

• Alberta’s becoming more influential,
• An Alberta separatist party surpassing 20% in provincial polls,
  and
• Several large financial institutions moving to Calgary.

Respondents are not quite convinced that Calgary will surpass Toronto in the number of head offices its hosts. Yet, the panel assigns an average probability of 41% to this happening- a probability of less than 50% and yet sizeable nonetheless.

The poll also asked respondents on a 100 percentage point probability scale ( zero meaning “it definitely won’t happen”, and 100 meaning “that it will almost certainly happen”) to score the likelihood of a number of Canadian scenarios occurring within the next decade. Those polled assigned a mean score of 70 to the likelihood that “conflict intensifies between Alberta and central Canada”. Alberta becoming Canada’s most influential province scored a 51, and “An Alberta separatist party gets 20% of the vote in a provincial election” scored a 49. Significantly, those surveyed thought it was more likely that separatism would take off in Alberta (49) than having an Albertan-led Conservative Party form the government (44). The following responses from two of those surveyed may give us an indication as to why this is the case.

• By an Alberta leader of the Conservatives, if you are referring to
  Stephen Harper, it won’t happen. He may be a great guy, but he
  lacks charisma and warmth, and the remake is making things worse.
  It highlights his discomfort with being Mr Congeniality.
• Alberta definitely has the winds at its back. However, its population is
  only a quarter of Ontario, which will limit its influence to some extent.

With attitudes such as this, it seems almost a certainty that those people who run in to a “glass ceiling” attempting to increase Alberta’s influence inside Confederation will look more favorably upon going outside of it as entirely more realistic .

Cross posted to Dispatches From The Western Alien Nation