Prime Minister Mark Carney says the Alberta referendum is a “dangerous bluff” if anyone thinks its results could be used as leverage in future negotiations.<\/p>\n
Carney says he saw those effects first-hand when he was the governor of the Bank of England after the Brexit vote, and warns that people are still trying to undo the damage caused by that decision a decade later.\n <\/p>\n
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said last week she will pose a question in a referendum in October asking whether Albertans think the province should remain part of Canada or should begin the legal process for a separation referendum.\n <\/p>\n
Carney says the government is reviewing that question to ensure it complies with the Clarity Act, the federal secession law which passed after the 1995 Quebec referendum.\n <\/p>\n
The prime minister says he plans to campaign for national unity and to show that co-operative federalism can work, pointing to his government’s recent deal to work with Alberta toward a new pipeline project.\n <\/p>\n
When asked if he tried to dissuade Smith from posing a separation question, Carney said, “The premier doesn’t always take my advice.”\n <\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on May 25, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Mark Carney says the Alberta referendum is a “dangerous bluff” if anyone thinks its results could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":984174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,10960,2000,299,5187,1699,6929,4884,68420,248829,6932,16,15],"class_list":["post-984173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-conservative","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-federal-government","tag-great-britain","tag-liberal","tag-ndp","tag-political-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116636174786554292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/984174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}