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.
On a mild though grey winter’s day just before Christmas, citizens of the Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Slovenia voted 95.7% in favour of becoming independent. Six months later, after negotiations regarding a looser “confederal” arrangement with their Serbian overlords in Belgrade broke down, the Slovenian Parliament issued a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI).
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.
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?”
Premier Doug Ford is blasting Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s decision to hold a referendum on whether her province should move toward secession from Canada.
“I’d never do it. Premier Smith knows how I feel. She wants to, I guess, protect her 30 per cent base,” Ford said Friday in Sault Ste. Marie.
That was an apparent reference to separatist elements with Smith’s United Conservative Party that want Alberta to secede.
Back on May 11, the Alberta Independence movement had well over 300K signatures on their petition to trigger a referendum for independence when they submitted it to Elections Alberta for verification.
A court has struck down one Alberta independence petition,” says Keith Wilson, the St. Albert lawyer and advocate for Alberta’s separation from Canada. “This does not mean the referendum is over.”
“The legal path to an Alberta independence referendum remains open,” he declares on his YouTube channel, “and Alberta’s cabinet still has the authority to put the question to voters in October.”
