court in Alberta ruled<\/a> that a petition to trigger a referendum for Alberta to break away from Canada was unconstitutional, because the province had not consulted with Indigenous groups whose rights would be negatively affected should a secession take place.<\/p>\n\u201cDespite my personal support for remaining in Canada, I am deeply troubled by an erroneous court decision that interferes with the democratic rights of hundreds of thousands of Albertans,\u201d Ms. Smith said, adding that the appeals to the ruling would take years to play out in the courts.<\/p>\n
\u201cKicking the can down the road only prolongs a very emotional and important debate, and muzzling the voices of hundreds of thousands of Albertans wanting to be heard is unjustifiable in a free and democratic society,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The move has angered people on all sides of the debate: those who support independence feel Ms. Smith\u2019s referendum is a gimmick depriving them of the chance to truly ask the question; and those who support Alberta remaining in Canada are outraged the question will even be on a ballot.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada has been more circumspect, instead calling Alberta an \u201cessential\u201d part of the country but stopping short of criticizing Ms. Smith.<\/p>\n
What will the October vote be about exactly?<\/p>\n
Ms. Smith had earlier called for a vote on Oct. 19 on a number of questions relating to immigration policy.<\/p>\n
The following question will be added: \u201cShould 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?\u201d<\/p>\n
Simply put, the referendum will ask Albertans to decide if they want to stay in Canada, or hold another referendum to secede.<\/p>\n
Why do some people want Alberta to be independent?<\/p>\n
A small secessionist movement has long existed in Alberta, but it has grown in recent years and become more mainstream.<\/p>\n
Recent polls show that up to 30 percent of Albertans would vote in favor of seceding from Canada.<\/p>\n
While some people cite cultural reasons for this movement \u2014 Alberta is seen as more conservative than the rest of the country \u2014 it is economic grievances that have made this idea more appealing in recent years.<\/p>\n
Alberta is Canada\u2019s oil producer, and, over the past decade, environmental and other regulations promoted under the previous government led by Justin Trudeau were seen as punitive, depriving Albertans of income.<\/p>\n
Some Albertans feel that they are unduly taxed to pay for social and welfare programs to poorer parts of the country and feel that the federal government should not be using Albertans\u2019 taxes while also stifling their potential to earn more.<\/p>\n
Is there a U.S. link?<\/p>\n
Separatist leaders met on three occasions last year with Trump administration officials in Washington, although the State Department and the White House have dismissed those meetings as routine engagements with interest groups.<\/p>\n
The highest ranking member of the Trump administration to speak about the Albertan independence movement was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who in January said that \u201cThey have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people,\u201d and added that there\u2019s a \u201crumor that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pro-independence activists who have connected with the U.S. administration have said they asked for funding and other assistance, such as the use of U.S. dollar, if they are successful in splitting the landlocked province away from Canada, but the administration has said it made no pledges of material or other support.<\/p>\n
Supporters of President Trump and MAGA activists, most notably Stephen K. Bannon, have spoken publicly in favor of Alberta separating from Canada.<\/p>\n
A small minority within the independence movement would like Alberta to become part of the United States, but separatist leaders have walked away from that position as it\u2019s not popular with the majority of the movement.<\/p>\n
What do Canadian political leaders think?<\/p>\n
The two top federal parties \u2014 the Liberals under Canada\u2019s prime minister, Mark Carney, and the Conservatives under the opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre \u2014 are firmly against secession.<\/p>\n
Mr. Carney has sought to reverse the impression that his party wants to stifle Alberta\u2019s growth and has worked with Ms. Smith to propose a new pipeline to take more oil from the province to the British Columbia coast, to ship to Asian markets. Ms. Smith has said she hopes the federal government\u2019s change in attitude toward oil will show Albertans that Canada works for the province.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Mr. Poilievre said the Conservatives would campaign against separation. \u201cI stand for a united country, and we\u2019re going to campaign every day and every way to unite this country around hope,\u201d he said at a news conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The oil-rich Western Canadian province of Alberta will hold a vote in October asking its citizens if they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9473,17,735,24543,19438,6783,19555,6777,6841,14568,19437,15993],"class_list":["post-56893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta-canada","tag-canada","tag-carney","tag-content-type-service","tag-danielle-1971","tag-mark-j","tag-oil-petroleum-and-gasoline","tag-politics-and-government","tag-polls-and-public-opinion","tag-referendums","tag-secession-and-independence-movements","tag-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56893","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=56893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}