{"id":56348,"date":"2026-05-22T16:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T16:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/56348\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T16:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T16:36:18","slug":"pm-carney-says-alberta-essential-to-canada-as-separatist-push-advances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/56348\/","title":{"rendered":"PM Carney says Alberta \u2018essential\u2019 to Canada, as separatist push advances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Friday that Alberta was \u201cessential\u201d to the country\u2019s future, hours after the province\u2019s leader moved the oil-rich region closer towards a referendum on independence.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Separatists in the western province spent months collecting signatures seeking to trigger a binding October vote on seceding from the nation.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">On May 4, they delivered their petition to provincial officials, insisting they had collected more than enough names to force a vote under Alberta law.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">But an Alberta judge shut down the process, saying the citizens\u2019 initiative was invalid because the separatists had failed to consult indigenous groups whose rights could be threatened if the province separated from Canada.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In an address late Thursday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called the judge\u2019s decision \u201cerroneous\u201d, charging that it \u201cinterferes with the democratic rights of hundreds of thousands of Albertans\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Canada\u2019s Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith acknowledge the crowd before signing an energy agreement in Calgary, Alberta, on May 15. Photo: Reuters\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/52696e91-161c-4fc3-8ee3-f5668596f3b8_a8a83a39.jpg\" title=\"Canada\u2019s Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith acknowledge the crowd before signing an energy agreement in Calgary, Alberta, on May 15. Photo: Reuters\"\/>Canada\u2019s Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith acknowledge the crowd before signing an energy agreement in Calgary, Alberta, on May 15. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Smith, a conservative whose political coalition includes separatists, said she supports \u201cAlberta remaining in Canada\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Friday that Alberta was \u201cessential\u201d to the country\u2019s future, hours after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[164,23146,17,22918,735,3178,111,24744,61,3203,15993,228],"class_list":["post-56348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-alberta","tag-alberta-premier-danielle-smith","tag-canada","tag-canadian-prime-minister-mark-carney","tag-carney","tag-danielle-smith","tag-mark-carney","tag-october","tag-ottawa","tag-parliament-hill","tag-smith","tag-trudeau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56348","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=56348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}