Alberta minister’s provincial flag hoisting raises questions about separation stance

Alberta’s education minister’s provincial flag-hoisting during an overseas tribute to his sister is colliding with the simmering sovereignty debate as questions mount over where UCP caucus members stand on the issue.

Demetrios Nicolaides made the trek to honour his sister, Melanie, who was murdered by her estranged partner on Jan. 16, 2024, before he took his own life.

His trek was for the fundraising initiative Melanie’s Ascent, which has raised around $267,000 of its $300,000 goal. That’s being used for a new program with FearIsNotLove, a Calgary domestic violence prevention non-profit, along with critical safety tools for women fleeing domestic violence, such as home security systems and personal safety devices.

The Calgary-Bow MLA, in a photo posted to his government Facebook account, is surrounded by fellow hikers holding an Alberta flag.

While many applauded the achievement, the photo, which received over 1,000 likes and nearly 400 comments, prompted some to ask why the politician didn’t raise a Canadian flag while in another country.

Questions such as “Why not a Canada flag?” were on the post, which were referencing the ongoing petition seeking to have Alberta separate from Canada.

The push for a chance to vote on Alberta’s separation from Canada is now in its second month of collecting signatures. The group behind it, Stay Free Alberta, has until May to retrieve nearly 178,000 signatures.

This also comes as the Alberta Republican Party released a list of MLAs who want to separate, and Jeffrey Rath, a representative of the petition initiative, says members of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s caucus have signed it.

Both Smith and Nicolaides, who spoke at an unrelated press conference on Thursday, said they have not signed the petition.

660 NewsRadio asked the minister’s senior press secretary, Garrett Koehler, about the education minister’s choice of flag, and was told that asking is inappropriate.

“Minister Nicolaides climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to honour the memory of his sister and raise funds to help end domestic violence,” the statement reads.

“Politicizing images from such a deeply personal and purpose-driven journey is abhorrent and profoundly disrespectful.”

Smith has long attempted to stay above the fray, saying she supports a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada, but that she believes in direct democracy.

But she and her United Conservative Party government have faced, and rebuffed, a series of recent calls to denounce the independence movement. Her government twice removed legal hurdles that would pave the way for the separation petition.

A recent poll from the Angus Reid Institute shows that over half of Albertans would “definitely” vote to keep the province in Canada if a referendum on separation were held.

Tania Vanderland, who was part of the Recall Nicolaides campaign, says the lack of clarification on the flag-on-the-mountain situation is just another example of why they feel he isn’t fit for his political post.

“It is curious to see him use this platform to raise the Alberta flag,” she says. “And it is also curious that he chose to do that as well on this Mount Kilimanjaro trip, which is a different issue that he was trying to raise awareness around.”

The recall petition for Nicolaides failed to reach the required benchmark of 16,500 signatures by nearly 10,000. It was the first of 26 launched against members of the legislature in the final months of 2025. Twenty-four are against members of Smith’s caucus, including herself. Two are against members of the Alberta NDP.

However, Vanderland says the failed recall bid wasn’t a total loss, as it led to political engagement.

As for the flag, she wants to know why Nicolaides chose the one he did and feels, given he is a provincial minister, it is an appropriate question.

“Why didn’t he raise a Canadian flag?” she asks. “Or was it necessary at all to use that platform and that moment to raise a flag? You know, I understand the trip was about his sister.”

With files from The Canadian Press