On May 21, Danielle Smith went on television to announce she had threaded the needle. Alberta would hold a referendum on October 19. The question would not ask Albertans whether they wanted to leave Canada. It would ask whether they wanted to begin the legal process that could eventually lead to a vote on leaving. Smith said she would vote remain. Problem managed.
By Tuesday morning, the needle was somewhere on the floor.
Five days of news produced a cleaner picture of Alberta politics than anyone involved probably wanted. Here is what actually happened this week, and what it means going forward.
The Question
The October 19 ballot will ask: 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? Smith’s office confirmed to the BBC that voters will check one of two boxes: option A to remain, option B to commence the legal process.
It is worth noting what is not on that ballot. The citizen-led petition that collected more than 300,000 signatures this spring asked a direct question: do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state? That question was quashed by an Alberta court in May, on the grounds that the provincial government failed to consult First Nations whose treaty lands would be affected. The 300,000 petition signatures are currently sitting in a locked cabinet at Elections Alberta with 24/7 security monitoring, verification on hold pending the court’s resolution of the duty to consult question.
What often gets missed in coverage of that petition: a counter-petition called Forever Canadian, led by former Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk, collected more than 400,000 signatures from Albertans who want to stay. It was larger than the separatist petition, in a province of just over five million people.
The Fracture
The separatist movement’s response to Smith’s question has been something between fury and fracture. Mitch Sylvestre, who led the petition drive, says he is organizing to either force a UCP leadership review of Smith or push the party to demand a different question. He plans to announce his next steps in early June. His lawyer Jeffrey Rath has said Smith has lost the moral authority to lead. Jason Lavigne, another prominent separatist voice, is distancing himself from Rath’s rhetoric while still validating the underlying frustration. These three men nominally want the same thing and currently agree on very little else.
The UCP party president, Rob Smith, has declared the party itself neutral on the referendum, given sharp disagreement among the membership. That puts the governing party’s own organization at odds with the premier, her cabinet, and her caucus.
Jason Stephan, Smith’s parliamentary secretary for constitutional affairs, quietly resigned on April 7 after publicly urging Albertans to sign the Stay Free petition. His departure was confirmed this week. Asked whether Smith discussed his separatist advocacy with him before he left, the premier’s office did not answer.
On Monday night, former premier Jason Kenney and constitutional lawyer Keith Wilson debated Alberta’s future in front of a sold-out crowd at The Grand in downtown Calgary, hosted by the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy. Kenney joined with Liberal MP Corey Hogan on the federalist side; Wilson argued the case for independence. Both agreed on one thing: the UCP is heading for a split.
Kenney argued Alberta should fight for a federal government more sensitive to the province’s interests, while using powers available to it as a province. He pointed to the Canadian government’s ownership of Trans-Mountain, the likelihood that First Nations would refuse to recognize an Albertan declaration of independence, and the probability of crashing housing prices as people left the province after a vote to separate. He called separation “the single most dramatic act of economic suicide in modern history.” He also drew on a conversation with Quebec Premier François Legault, who told him Quebec spent six decades turning inward in a political civil war instead of focusing on growth. His question to the room: why would Alberta replicate what Quebec failed at?
Wilson countered that Alberta has tried loyalty and patience for decades and has nothing to show for it. He called Canada a failed experiment, too large and regionally diverse to govern effectively, and argued Alberta would be better positioned negotiating with Canada as a neighbour from a position of strength. An audience member who attended feeling on the fence said Kenney presented stronger arguments despite what sounded like a largely pro-separatist crowd.
The Legal Picture
Smith’s October question does not trigger the federal Clarity Act. Prime Minister Carney confirmed this Tuesday, citing advice from a panel of experts. Stéphane Dion, who drafted the Act in 2000, confirmed the same: the Act will apply only if a binding separation referendum is eventually held. The Bloc Québécois used the moment to call for the Act’s outright repeal.
Carney has called Smith’s question a dangerous bluff, drawing directly on his experience as Bank of England governor during Brexit. He watched a vote framed as a free option spiral far beyond what anyone thought they were voting for. Ontario Premier Doug Ford called the referendum a play to appease 30 percent of Smith’s base, adding flatly: “I’d never do it.” BC Premier David Eby said that calling this the worst possible time to test the bonds holding the country together was a significant understatement.
As Susan Delacourt of the Toronto Star noted this week, that blowback is now coming from a Liberal, a Conservative, and a New Democrat simultaneously. The consensus outside Alberta is no longer just about how the referendum should go. It is about whether it should happen at all. Delacourt also flagged the risk: too much outside intervention could harden the very sentiment it is trying to soften, as it may have during the 1995 Quebec “love-in” rally, which historians still debate.
Kananaskis
The Western Premiers Conference produced the exchange that may define how this week is remembered. At a joint press conference, Smith told reporters that Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, the section affirming Indigenous peoples’ rights, deserves a second look, citing a lack of clarity around what the duty to consult means. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, seated at the same table with Smith and the other premiers, corrected the record without raising his voice. The duty to consult belongs to the Alberta government, he said, not to petition gatherers. He thanked the First Nations that took the separation question to court for hitting the pause button.
The duty to consult is not a peripheral legal technicality. Two Alberta courts have said so, six months apart. The challenge was brought by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Blood Tribe, Piikani Nation, and Siksika Nation. Their argument is foundational: Treaties 6, 7, and 8 predate the province of Alberta. The separation movement has not addressed what happens to those treaties in an independent Alberta.
On Thursday, May 28, Between the Lines Canada publishes a full analytical piece on exactly this question. It is the one this week’s news was always pointing toward.
The Economic Signal
This week also saw the first organized Alberta conservative establishment response to the referendum from inside the province. Jim Dinning and Travis Toews, two of the longest-serving conservative finance ministers in Alberta’s recent history, launched a new initiative called Lead, Not Leave. Their founding letter calls on the Alberta government to not hold a referendum on separation and instead focus on making the case for Alberta in Canada with a credible set of policy proposals tied to the energy memorandum of understanding signed by Smith and Carney last November.
Dinning was direct: Alberta has legitimate grievances with Ottawa, but independence is not a viable option and not a credible solution. If the processes and policies standing in the way of economic growth are not fixed, he warned, Canada’s Maple Leaf flag will be pretty tattered and torn sooner rather than later. That warning came the same week at least one Alberta business told reporters it was considering relocating outside the province because of the investment uncertainty the referendum question has created.
The corporate sector, as Susan Delacourt observed, may ultimately make the most persuasive unity argument of all. It is making it now, from inside Alberta, in the language Alberta’s conservative establishment understands best.
What to Watch
The polls are consistent: three in five Albertans would currently vote to remain in Canada. Support for independence sits at roughly 26 to 28 percent across multiple recent surveys, with a significant portion of that support described as symbolic or conditional. The separatists are loud. They are not, by any current measure, a majority.
Sylvestre has promised an announcement in early June that will determine whether the separatist movement has a coherent next move or is dissolving into competing factions. The court decision on the duty to consult will determine whether the 300,000 petition signatures are ever verified. The Alberta story is also now an international one: Time magazine ran a substantial explainer for American readers this month, and the BBC covered the referendum question in detail this week, confirming directly from Smith’s office exactly how the two-box ballot will work.
October 19 is still five months away. A lot can happen between now and then. A lot already has.
As Susan Delacourt closed her column this week: Canadians have a stake in this referendum. They cannot stay completely out of it. But wading in is going to be risky in the months leading up to October 19.
CBC News, National Post, Toronto Star, Calgary Herald, BBC News, Time magazine, Elections Alberta, Angus Reid, Ipsos, and Abacus Data.
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Leni Spooner is a Canadian writer, researcher, and civic storyteller, and the founder of Between the Lines Canada. Between the Lines Canada explores Canadian politics, policy, and public life through accessible, story-driven analysis. Readout: Canada is its Substack newsletter.
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We lived in Montreal for 9 years. 1987-1996. Loved it. Helped this Ontarian understand Canada in a much deeper way. And I can tell you that the Canadian bank I worked for quietly and persistently transferred whole departments of people down the 401 to Toronto. Never enough to attract attention. There’s a reason Montreal is no longer the first city of Canada. Lack of certainty both for investors and people wanting to move there. Quebec has beautifully protected 400 years of French culture , but it came at a cost.
“The 300,000 petition signatures are currently sitting in a locked cabinet at Elections Alberta with 24/7 security monitoring, verification on hold pending the court’s resolution of the duty to consult question.” I don’t think I am of a particularly suspicious nature, but I am troubled by the data breach featuring millions of Alberta voters, pretty much simultaneous with this petition. I do wonder how many of those signatures are actually real.
Thanks for this excellent unwrapping of an enormously complex issue. I sometimes wonder, as we all move through all this drama, exactly how other provinces and states and territories around the world would fare in surveys taken to determine the unity of their nation. If someone surveyed Ontario, what percentage of residents would suggest separation as an option? I know that Northern Ontario, where I live, spent many years with a separatist faction pointing out how the south of the province took away the resources (gold, silver, etc.) and built rings of new suburbs around Toronto with every new gold strike.
Perhaps in any federated state there is a pull towards disintegration. Especially from resource-rich areas who feel hard done by. I don’t know. I do know that as PM Carney says, we are stronger together. And so far so good. I see the issues. And I’m still optimistic — not that the separatists will have a change of heart, they are way too aggrieved for that— but that wiser heads will prevail. I for one cannot imagine having Premier Smith in charge of my pension plan.