(PA Media\/dpa) – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has branded Alberta\u2019s vote on whether to hold an independence referendum a \u201cdangerous bluff\u201d and likened it to Brexit.<\/p>\n
Carney was the governor of the Bank of England in 2016 when Britain decided to leave the European Union.<\/p>\n
He warned that a decade on, the UK was still \u201ctrying to undo what people didn\u2019t think they were voting for, but what they ended up having.\u201d<\/p>\n
Embattled UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has moved to reset relations with Brussels, while his potential leadership challengers, former health secretary Wes Streeting and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, have both spoken of wanting to rejoin the bloc.<\/p>\n
Danielle Smith, leader of Canada\u2019s oil-rich western province of Alberta, announced last week that a vote would be held on October 19 on whether it should stay part of the country or move towards holding a binding referendum on breaking away.<\/p>\n
Carney said late Monday: \u201cIn these separation issues, it is often advanced that, \u2018Vote for this and it is a free option\u2019, \u2018Vote for this, and we will strengthen our hand in a future negotiation\u2019. That is a very dangerous bluff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw first hand what happened in the United Kingdom when the view was, \u2018Vote for this, it\u2019ll be soft and then we\u2019ll negotiate, etc\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re still 10 years later trying to undo what people didn\u2019t think they were voting for, but what they ended up having.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith has said she supports Alberta remaining in Canada.<\/p>\n
Some have compared her stance to then British prime minister David Cameron, who called the Brexit referendum in order to silence internal Conservative Party dissent while wanting to stay part of the EU.<\/p>\n
He resigned following the vote to leave.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s party did not run on a platform of holding a referendum in the last provincial election campaign.<\/p>\n
Carney said: \u201cIs it the democratic will of Albertans? Did they vote for this in the last provincial election? No, they didn\u2019t. It wasn\u2019t on the ballot paper.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed out his government was working on getting an oil pipeline built from Alberta to Canada\u2019s Pacific coast, aimed at responding to Albertan complaints that not enough had been done to help exports.<\/p>\n
Carney said: \u201cWe have to be very careful about this. There\u2019s a very strong positive case for Canada, a strong Alberta in a united Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to making that case with many, many other Albertans and Canadians over the course of the next 150 days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith said people\u2019s frustrations had been fuelled by the \u201cdisastrous policies\u201d of the previous Canadian leader Justin Trudeau.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI would also remind all Canadians that we should not dismiss the legitimate grievances of Albertans.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, we should focus on addressing these issues, restoring hope in Canada, and demonstrating that our country can work and is working.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(PA Media\/dpa) – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has branded Alberta\u2019s vote on whether to hold an independence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[3289,26196,3178,14525,111,15683],"class_list":["post-61219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-brexit","tag-brexit-referendum","tag-danielle-smith","tag-independence-referendum","tag-mark-carney","tag-prime-minister-keir-starmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61219","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=61219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}