Only 60 days remain until Albertans answer 10 questions that could shape the future of the province.
Nine focus on immigration and constitutional reform. But it’s the 10th question — whether Albertans want the province to remain in Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on separation — that is increasingly poised to animate town halls and rallies scheduled in the coming days.
Matt Ridley recently argued that the defining political struggle of our age is no longer simply Left against Right. It is top-down control against bottom-up freedom. Government should protect rights, enforce contracts, and set fair rules. It should also possess enough humility to let people solve their own problems.
That argument could have been written for Alberta.
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Most Albertans are too busy working, paying the bills, driving kids to practice, and discovering that an ordinary trip to the grocery store can now resemble a major capital expense. They do not spend their evenings reading court judgments or federal transfer tables.
They have good reason not to follow every quarrel between Edmonton and Ottawa. But Question 10 on the October 19 Provincial referendum deserves their attention.
Over a million people descend on the Calgary Stampede every year to marvel at the iconic chuckwagon race, a sport invented in the Albertan city where carriage drivers race teams of horses around the track to the sound of pounding hooves, or be amazed by the speed of bareback riders racing in First Nations horse relays.
The ‘Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth’ is the marquee event on Alberta’s summer calendar, a distinctly western Canadian spectacle where political leaders also have to test their mettle, judged on the quality of their pancake flips at community Stampede breakfasts and their ability to pull off a cowboy hat.
The 10 year anniversary in late June of the British public voting to leave the European Union in the Brexit referendum received considerable coverage in Canada, not least because of the forthcoming Alberta separatism referendum.
Canadians were treated to a stream of reports of apparent regret by the majority of the British public and commentators from the U.K., who never voted for and never accepted leaving the EU, spouting all sorts of nonsense about the apparent economic impacts of Brexit on the U.K. economy.
When the Alberta government announced the makeup of what was to be an impartial panel examining the economic cost of independence, a couple of the names raised eyebrows.
Ted Morton would be taking part. The former provincial finance minister was a signatory to the infamous “firewall letter” that was published in 2001 and called for greater Alberta autonomy in Canada. Meantime, the panel was to be headed by Jack Mintz, a conservatively inclined economist who wrote a 2020 book with Mr. Morton (and Tom Flanagan) called Moment of Truth: How to Think About Alberta’s Future. In it, the authors said none favoured separation as a first option, “but we also see it as a viable last resort if all else fails.”
Would Alberta seniors lose their Canadian pensions if the province separates? Would Albertans lose their Canadian passports?
Even these basic questions are disputed in Alberta right now as both sides gear up for a referendum on the question of independence this October.
Separatist supporter Wendy Fitzpatrick said pensions were the biggest point of concern she heard from older Albertans while gathering signatures, and she believes the pro-Canada side is spreading misinformation on that.
OTTAWA — Eleanor Olszewski jokes that, like most good Albertans, she originally comes from Saskatchewan.
Born in Swift Current, Sask., Olszewski called the small city home for only a couple of years. Her family moved to Medicine Hat, Alta. where she was raised, before leaving for Edmonton to attend university, achieving degrees first in pharmacy and then later law, eventually settling down to raise her own two children in the provincial capital.
OTTAWA—Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will launch his campaign against Alberta separatism on Monday, beginning with an address that will argue that national unity is not about stronger ties to Ottawa, but on fighting against it.
“Listen carefully to the concerns of those saying that they want to leave. And you will find that they do not have a problem with fellow Canadians or even with Canada. They have a problem with the federal government,” reads an excerpt from Poilievre’s remarks that his office shared with media ahead of his Calgary speech.
Central Canadian political elites are upset with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s decision to hold a referendum that might eventually lead to a sovereign Alberta.
While sovereigntist sentiment in Quebec has long been acknowledged and accommodated in English Canada, Western alienation is treated with who-do-they-think-they-are condescension.
That condescension led to the referendum. Decades of decisions made in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal have stoked the anger that led Ms. Smith to call this vote. The Laurentian elites are every bit as responsible for this situation as is the Premier or anyone else.
Remember the story of a Prairie farmer who comes home to find his crops destroyed by hail, his house struck by lightning, and his wife running off with the hired hand? He shakes his fist at the sky and screams: “Goddamn the CPR!”
If you grew up in Alberta, you remember.
The reality is that many Albertans — and not just those already convinced that separation is the only answer — are legitimately frustrated with their province’s status in Canada.
Gratuitously insulting them over the next five months, at least, as Albertans debate their future role in or outside of Confederation, serves no purpose.
The CBC. Absolute arsehole of journalism in Canada.
Announcing her referendum question last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith invoked the last prime minister’s name four times.
“When I was first elected premier, I was very concerned that it would be almost impossible to restore provincial rights stolen from Alberta and other provinces by the Trudeau-Singh government in Ottawa,” she said, also referencing the former NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, whose caucus supported the Trudeau government from 2022 to 2024.
It is painful to reflect on this, but I think we are disserving ourselves if we do not recognize how absurd this country appears to many well-disposed and intelligent foreign onlookers. We are now seen as the most absurdly woke and politically correct (and therefore foolish) country in the world, and the country with the highest suicide rate in the world because our crumbling health-care system now champions the virtues of early death, as well as being one of the most unsafe advanced countries for Jews to live in, because of widespread antisemitic bigotry.
Alberta is about to decide whether it wants to stay in Canada or take steps to become an independent nation.
The provincial premier, Danielle Smith, recently announced that Alberta will hold a referendum to determine its future in Canada. The question to be asked will be: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”
