Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta is flirting with independence. The country’s prime minister hears echoes of Brexit.
Could Alberta leave Canada?
When Alberta’s premier, Danielle Smith, last week announced a referendum in October on whether the province should hold a binding vote for independence, Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney described the move as “a very dangerous bluff”. As a former governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, Carney said he knew the consequences such referendums could have.
“I saw first-hand what happened in the United Kingdom when the view was, ‘vote for this, it’ll be soft, and then we’ll negotiate’,” he said.
“They’re still, 10 years later, trying to undo what people didn’t think they were voting for, but what they ended up having.”
A former journalist who leads the right-wing United Conservative Party, Smith says she wants Alberta to remain part of Canada. But after a court blocked a straightforward referendum on independence despite a petition attracting enough signatures to put it on the ballot, she said Albertans should be able to choose to go ahead with such a vote.
The question put to the people on October 19th will be a complicated one, reflecting the fact that a petition for a referendum confirming Alberta’s place in Canada also gained enough signatures: “Should 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?”
With a population of almost five million people, Alberta has the highest GDP per capita of any province, chiefly because its oil sands produce more than 80 per cent of Canada’s crude oil. The predominantly conservative province has long had a difficult relationship with Ottawa, particularly under Liberal administrations.
Tensions were especially high under Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau, whose policies to reduce carbon emissions were perceived as hostile to Alberta’s interests as an oil-producing region. Carney has taken a more conciliatory approach, signing a memorandum of understanding last November on the construction of a pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific.
A poll by the Angus Reid Institute this week found that 60 per cent of Albertans would vote No in October’s referendum compared with 35 per cent who would vote Yes, although half said they found the question confusing. Support for independence is lower, according to a CBC poll in late April that found 27 per cent would vote to leave Canada compared with 67 per cent who want to stay.
Even if October’s referendum passes, there are a number of hurdles in the way of holding a binding vote on independence. The court order blocking an independence referendum this year followed a challenge from the indigenous people from the First Nations who said they were not consulted.
Canada’s constitution recognises treaties agreed between the indigenous peoples and the British Crown before Alberta joined the Canadian Confederation in 1905. Grand Chief Trevor Mercredi of the Treaty 8 First Nations said Alberta should pause all preparations for the referendum until there was “meaningful consultation and engagement” with the indigenous peoples.
“Treaty No 8 was entered into with the Crown long before Alberta became a province. These sacred agreements cannot simply be ignored or politically worked around,” he said.
Canada could face another separatist referendum if the Parti Québécois, which is ahead in the polls, wins a provincial election later this year. The French-speaking province held two failed referendums on independence in 1980 and 1995 and party leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has promised that if he wins the election there will be a third.
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