By Amanda Stephenson<\/p>\n
CALGARY, May 21 (Reuters) – An Alberta legislative committee recommended on Thursday that the oil-rich province should proceed with a referendum on whether it wants to remain part of Canada, a move which \u200ccould pose a major challenge for Prime Minister Mark Carney.<\/p>\n
A decision on whether to include the question along \u200cwith other measures on a planned ballot in October will be made by the province’s government. Premier Danielle Smith is scheduled to hold a prime-time \u200baddress later on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The recommendation comes after months of campaigning by a vocal group of separatists who want a referendum on leaving Canada in spite of polling that has consistently shown separation is supported by only about one-third of the province’s voters.<\/p>\n
If included, it would be the first time in Canadian history that a province outside of Quebec has put the question of separation \u200cto the public. It promises to be divisive \u2060not only within Alberta but more broadly in Canada, as Carney attempts to lead a united Canadian front as he grapples with U.S. tariffs.<\/p>\n
Carney has rolled back several of his predecessor’s environmental \u2060measures that angered many Albertans who argued they undermined the province’s oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n
Any ballot measure could still face legal challenges and the federal government has not indicated how it would react.<\/p>\n
The question of national unity is highly sensitive in Canada, particularly in \u200bthe \u200bwake of a referendum in Quebec in 1995 that only just \u200bfailed to back independence for the province.<\/p>\n
After that vote, \u200cthe federal government pushed through legislation giving parliament the final say over the wording of any province’s proposed referendum and laying down conditions that must be met before Ottawa would open talks on independence.<\/p>\n
Separatists delivered a petition to Elections Alberta earlier this month that they said had over 300,000 signatures \u2014 more than enough to trigger a vote on leaving Canada under provincial law.<\/p>\n
They were dealt a setback last week, however, when a provincial court ruled in favor of a First Nations bid \u200cto halt the referendum petition. But Smith, who has stopped short \u200bof publicly supporting independence, promised to appeal against the judge’s decision, saying \u200bit infringed on the rights of citizens to speak \u200bout about important issues.<\/p>\n
With the separatist petition halted, her party moved on Thursday to recommend that \u200ca referendum be held instead on a different petition \u200bwhich declares that Alberta should \u200bremain a province of Canada. That petition garnered more than 400,000 signatures.<\/p>\n
The petition’s proponent, Thomas Lukaszuk, said it had been meant to prevent a referendum and that if Smith’s government chooses to now put his question on remaining \u200bin Canada on a ballot, it would \u200cbe acting without his endorsement.<\/p>\n
Smith had previously reduced the number of signatures required to prompt a citizen-led referendum \u200bby half, leading her opponents to accuse her of unnecessarily fanning the flames of separatism.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Amanda \u200bStephenson in Calgary; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Edmund Klamann )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Amanda Stephenson CALGARY, May 21 (Reuters) – An Alberta legislative committee recommended on Thursday that the oil-rich…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[164,17,3178,8868,111,24452],"class_list":["post-55277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-alberta","tag-canada","tag-danielle-smith","tag-elections-alberta","tag-mark-carney","tag-province-of-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}