CALGARY — In what clinicians are cautiously describing as a once-in-a-generation event, prominent Alberta separatist Jeffrey Rath and committed federalist Thomas Lukaszuk this week independently arrived at the same conclusion, prompting Alberta Health Services to assemble its own five-member panel to determine how it happened.

The two men, who agree on essentially nothing else regarding the province's future, both examined the UCP government's cost-of-independence panel — recruited from the Calgary School of Public Policy to dispassionately assess the economics of a breakaway Alberta — and reached the identical finding that it appears to favour breaking away.

"We want to stress that spontaneous cross-partisan agreement of this kind is extremely uncommon and should not be attempted at home," said a spokesperson for the new health panel, which was given a budget, a mandate, and, observers noted, a roster selected entirely by the same office that selected the first one. "We are treating it as a notifiable condition out of an abundance of caution."

According to the government, the original panel was designed to provide Albertans with a neutral, evidence-based assessment so that the public could weigh the costs of independence for themselves. Both Rath and Lukaszuk reviewed the membership and concluded the assessment had been weighed for them.

Health Minister's office declined to say whether the panel studying the panel would itself require a panel, noting only that the work was important, the timeline was urgent, and the findings were expected to align closely with whatever the government already believed. Pressed on the apparent pattern, a spokesperson said the new panel had been carefully balanced to ensure a wide range of supportive views.

At press time, Rath and Lukaszuk had reportedly noticed they were once again in agreement, and were said to be deeply unsettled by it.