Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks during a televised address aired on Thursday.HO/The Canadian Press
Tyler Dawson is an Edmonton-based editor in The Globe and Mail’s Opinion section. He is the author of The Republic of Alberta: An Idea That Won’t Go Away.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith hasn’t quite set Alberta up for a secession referendum. She’s just coming really, really close – about as close as you can get – and nobody, not the separatists, not the federalists, is all that thrilled about it.
On Thursday evening, in a televised address to the province, Ms. Smith announced that Alberta would not hold a referendum on seceding from Canada but would instead hold a province-wide vote in October on either remaining in Canada or whether the provincial government should hold a referendum on secession at a later date. The question: “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?”
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Ms. Smith has, for at least the last year, attempted to have it both ways on the separatist question. She has staked out her personal position as that of a federalist, although often framed by the rather suspicious phrase “a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada,” while simultaneously making it easier than ever for a secession referendum to actually be held. At least until the courts put a stop to it on the grounds that Indigenous consultation was required before a referendum could be held. This way, Ms. Smith can try and play it from a few angles. She gets to criticize the judges who put an end to secessionists’ dreams, accusing them of “muzzling” Albertans. She also gets to set out the steps by which the separatists could get a referendum, which at the same time could allow federalists to crush the separatists, putting an end to the entire conversation.
Unsurprisingly, everyone is unhappy with how Ms. Smith has played it. The separatists want a proper referendum and they want it now, and the federalists think the entire debate is too toxic to touch in the first place. It’s the former group that’s a potential threat to Ms. Smith, although voters will have their say, too – and they’ll likely remember this – when Alberta goes to the polls next year.
Canada's oil-rich province of Alberta will proceed with a non-binding referendum in October on whether its residents want to remain part of Canada, Premier Danielle Smith said Thursday, a largely symbolic move that could still pose a major challenge for Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Reuters
The reality right now, though, is that some significant percentage of those who vote for and support Ms. Smith’s United Conservative Party favour destroying the country by hiving off Alberta.
And anybody who’s followed Alberta politics for any length of time also knows that within the conservative movement, there’s a certain fondness for knives in the dark, and right-wing infighting undid Ms. Smith’s immediate predecessor. It’s likely she is attempting to avoid that same fate. Whether this half-measure will be enough to stave off a push to see Ms. Smith removed and replaced remains to be seen, though early indications are that some separatists want to organize to oust her. Ultimately, this decision is best understood as a way for Ms. Smith to try and ensure her personal political survival.
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Sure, this isn’t a true secession referendum. But it’s rather close – close enough, perhaps, to have some of the deleterious effects that a proper secession referendum would have. There will likely be consequences for the provincial investment climate, increased risk for the still-embryonic west-coast pipeline, and political consequences for the UCP in the provincial election scheduled for 2027. After all, Albertans didn’t elect a separatist government in 2023; they elected a government that would, at worst, flirt with secession, not opt for something approaching separatist cosplay.
The most bizarre thing about all of this is that Alberta’s fortunes are on the ascendant – Ms. Smith even alluded to this in her remarks – and instead of revelling in it, the United Conservative government has decided it’s worth imperiling the concessions already extracted from Ottawa and the national goodwill engendered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s belligerence in order to try to appease a minority of Albertans.
For example, Alberta cannot, however much it may desire it to do so, bulldoze through the concerns of British Columbians in order to get a pipeline built. It would also probably be best if the government found a way to convince private money to step up to pay for the thing, rather than financing it publicly. In both instances, Alberta is going to need the goodwill of its neighbours.
And holding a vote, even a quasi-vote, on leaving the country, risks doing the precise opposite. The good news, if there is any good news in this, is that by setting up this sort-of secession vote, the federalists can finally deal the separatists a devastating blow, preserving a country that has stood for a century and a half.
They have five months to prepare.