The Facts · Currency & Cost of Living

Your mortgage, your savings, your dollar

Every separation plan faces the same unanswered question. What money would Albertans use? Each answer means real volatility for your household.

?No agreed currency plan exists
$0Control over the loonie if we keep it4
YearsTo stand up a credible central bank
The currency trap

Three bad options, no good one

1

Keep the Canadian dollar, with no say

Alberta could keep using the loonie, but the Bank of Canada would set interest rates for a country we just left, with zero Alberta representation.

2

Launch a new “Alberta dollar”

A brand-new currency would have no track record. Markets would discount it, imports would cost more, and your savings could lose value overnight.

3

Peg to the US dollar

Pegging surrenders monetary policy to Washington and requires huge reserves Alberta doesn’t have. Pegs break, often painfully.

Where the pressure lands

Alberta is already a U.S.-dollar economy

Most of what Alberta sells is priced in a currency it won't control, with or without the loonie.

Alberta exports sold into the U.S. market189%
Alberta merchandise exports that are energy (globally USD-priced)176%
Alberta crude oil exports headed to the U.S.393%
Albertans who would vote to stay in Canada260%
The choice

Two very different futures

If Alberta separates

  • No control over interest rates
  • An untested, discounted currency
  • Higher prices on imports
  • Volatile mortgages and savings
  • Costly currency reserves to build

If Alberta stays

  • A seat at the Bank of Canada table
  • A globally trusted currency
  • Stable, predictable prices
  • Mortgages set with national stability
  • No reserve-building bill for families

Sources

  1. Statistics Canada, Table 12-10-0175-01. ~89% of Alberta's international merchandise exports went to the U.S. (2024); energy was ~76% of the total. Energy and cross-border sales are priced in U.S. dollars. StatCan.
  2. Angus Reid Institute (May 2026). 60% of Albertans would vote to remain in Canada. Angus Reid.
  3. Canada Energy Regulator. ~93% of Canadian crude oil exports went to the United States (2024). CER.
  4. A jurisdiction that uses a currency it does not issue has no vote over its interest rates; provinces have no governance role at the Bank of Canada. Bank of Canada; IMF, Dollarization: A Primer.

Figures are sourced where shown; the "three options" above describe well-understood trade-offs of monetary union, a new currency, or a peg.

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