Front Burner - Alberta’s referendum on a referendum

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Western Premiers gathered in Kananskis, Alberta this week to discuss shared issues like trade, defense and energy projects. But another topic overshadowed the meetings: Alberta separatism. Late last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced the province will hold a referendum on the prospect of independence in the fall. But rather than a straight question about leaving Canada, the referendum will ask Albertans whether they support another referendum on seceding. The question has both separatists and federalists upset.Kathleen Petty, host of the CBC podcast West of Centre, and Jason Markusoff, writer and producer with CBC in Alberta, join us to talk through the fallout. What does this mean for the country, for Albertans and for Smith herself?For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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No, not today. Looks like people are starting to know Beneva pretty well. You're stronger with the right partner, Beneva. This is a CBC podcast. Hi, everybody. I'm Jamie Prosson. Now, to say that this is the worst time to begin testing the bonds that hold this country together is a significant understatement. This is BC Premier David Eby, speaking from Canaanascus, Alberta, where Western premiers were gathered this week. Now, at the end of the day, this meeting is supposed to be about things like internal trade barriers,

national defense strategy, economic corridors. I mean, these topics seem at best confusing, if not totally awkward, in light of the referendum question that Premier Smith has put forward. Eby is, of course, talking about the referendum question on independence that Alberta Premier Daniel Smith announced she'll put forward this fall. Well, it's not so much a referendum on independence as a referendum on whether to have a referendum.

I'm joined today by two of my colleagues to walk me through the fallout, what this could mean for the country, for Albertans, and for Smith herself. Kathleen Petty is the host of the CBC podcast West of Center, and Jason Markisov is a writer and producer who covers Alberta politics. They are both great friends of the show. Thank you for being with me today. Hey there, Jamie. Hi, hi again, Jamie. Okay, so we are recording this late Tuesday afternoon. The Western Premier's meeting is wrapping up. And while it was supposed to be about economic corridors and trade, of course, the issue of separatism in Alberta has been hanging over it. We just listened to the Western premiers, Scott Moe of Saskatchewa and Wabh Knoe of Manitoba, B.C.'s David Eby, taking questions from reporters.

And Jason, how are these guys reacting to the fact that one of their neighbors is holding this vote that could lead to them potentially leaving the country? Well, in general terms, it's sort of like it just kind of puts everything up into question. I mean, you can't really, you know, plan your next summer's family trip if somebody might not be in the family going forward. Things are really fraught. Now, you know, I'll take Scott Moe a little bit separately, but Manitoba Premier Wab Canoe and BC Premier, Dave, you are both quite critical of this referendum. They are wishing it did not happen. They are, you know, proud patriots.

I think that this referendum question is a reckless decision. to test the bonds of the country at a time when we need to stick together. When we were leaving Calgary, we stopped at A&W, and there was an older woman who was working there, and she stopped me, and she was handing me the brown paper bag, and she goes, wop, tell our premier we don't want to separate from Canada. So I'm passing that message on to you, Danielle, and saying on behalf of the rest of Canada,

we're with that lady from A&W. They think that this is getting in the way of a lot of other things they could be discussing interprovincial trade, pipelines, interties, indigenous relations, so many other policies, U.S. trade. Scott Moe, who faces some separatist pressure within his own conservative party movement himself, takes a bit of a softer tone on this. He says he really understands the grievances within Alberta, and he thinks that there need to be understood, respected. and he is generally supportive of the referendum that Alberta Premier is putting forward. It's not a binding referendum question, or it is a referendum question, pardon me, but it's not a separation question. It's a question about whether we should even move forward with that.

So I don't see an issue with that in any way. I actually see this as the Premier really following the law that they had enacted in the province. Now, listen, the frustrations are real. We feel those in Saskatchewan. But on the other two sides of those, prairie provinces, a lot of frustration that this is happening, and that it gets in the way, really, of other work that they're trying to get done. And Kathleen, Jason mentioned Wob Canoe there.

There was this one moment in the press conference we just watched where things got quite tense between Danielle Smith and Wob Canoe. And this was around her answer to a question about the duty to consult Indigenous nations when it came to the petition on a referendum. She repeated what she has said before, that the issue, I think, in the court, is whether that duty to consult should apply to citizen-initiated petitions. And that's where I think that the court erred in judgment, and I think it's also anti-democratic, the decision that they made.

But we'll make the arguments in court about what the limits to duty to consult ought to be, and we'll see how that conversation goes. There's a couple of rounds that we have to go through, obviously, to Court of Appeal, probably also to the Supreme Court of Canada. But we want to make sure that we have a very clear understanding of what the duty to consult really means and what it doesn't mean. and I think at the moment there's a lack of clarity on that. And Wob Canoe came in and said...

And you've talked a lot about... Sorry, I'd like to respond. So I think we know that that is not correct, a lot of what you just said there, Premier Smith. And just what was your reaction to that exchange? Well, it was so interesting, Jamie, because at the beginning of the news conference, Wab Canoe was kind of doing the old soft shoe.

He was actually being pretty gentle about things and seeming like he was trying to avoid any direct confrontation. But in that moment, he started to tap dance, and I would say on Daniel Smith's head, because when she sort of responded with her argument that it was anti-democratic, he just jumped in. No one asked him to jump in. He chose to. And wow. And he made the point of saying, look. And we spoke about this, so I don't mind repeating this.

It is not up to the petition gatherers to fulfill the duty to consult. It is up to you as the Alberta government to fulfill the duty to consult. consult. And in this case, when there is clearly going to be an impact on well-established existing hunting and fishing rights by putting up an international border, if some would have their way, the judge ruled, and I would agree with the judge's ruling, that that is going to infringe on rights. And so there is a duty to consult. But what I found additionally interesting about it was Daniel Smith has often talked about the courts as being, you know, unelected judges, and they're not really interpreting the rights of Canadians or the Constitution in a way that is in line with

what she feels politicians are better able to discern and that they should have the ultimate authority, hence her various uses of the notwithstanding clause. Yet in this instance, she said, you know, she's going to appeal and that politicians can have disagreements. But ultimately, she'll be relying on the courts to settle disputes between politicians. which is, I would argue, a significantly different kind of argument than she's been making thus far. Let's talk now more about this separatism question that's going to a ballot in October. As I mentioned in the intro, this is not a straightforward question about whether Alberta should lead Canada. It is a question about whether Alberta should have a referendum on whether to leave Canada.

I will be requesting our government add an additional question. to the October 19th referendum vote announced previously. That question, should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or should the government of Alberta hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada? This question will also ensure the 700,000 signatories to both the Forever Canada petition and the Stay Free Alberta petition are respected, and the will of Albertans is heard.

I know that Alberta is obviously not a monolith, But how have people in Alberta been reacting to this news? Is it all anyone can talk about? Is it dominating headlines, Kathleen? Yes, it's dominating headlines here. It's dominating headlines across the country. I don't need to tell you that. That's why we're here.

That's why we're talking to you, Jamie. No, I think people are going to obsess about it, honestly. And we're just sort of seeing sort of the camps sort of divvy up and figure out who's going to do what. We've got all these federalist groups that are getting together and trying to organized to make the argument for Canada. Because remember, this is a two-parter. It's basically option A or option B. So option A is we're staying. And option B is, let's have a referendum on whether we want to leave. So first of all, I think people are very confused about the question. I do an open line show every day, and I can promise you, they are puzzled. And that's actually

not good for a question of this kind of consequence to have voters going in not sure what they're doing when they walk into the booth. And add to that, there's nine other questions and there could be more. So, you know, that's part of it. And it's also interesting, if you take a look at that Angus re-polling, Jamie, it was, first of all, a question about, you know, what do you think about a referendum on a referendum to separate? And it was 35 percent. But if they asked sort of a straight-up question you want to separate it was 30. So I think that's the other thing that people are sort of looking at, that people might be persuaded to consider the referendum, to have a referendum on separation. You know, maybe that's not a terribly high-risk strategy to pursue. Maybe we should do that

just to see how it would turn out. So I think that is going to be part of the obligation of those on the Federalist side to make the argument that that actually does have a consequence, and it's not just a freebie. Yeah, and just flesh out the consequences people are talking about here when they say that this is kind of a dangerous path. Well, to a certain extent, I mean, Mark Kearney has sort of made that argument as well, right? He's drawing a line and, you know, making a connection with Brexit. This is an observation from experience.

In these separation issues, it is often advanced that vote for this and it's a free option. Vote for this and we will strengthen our hand in future negotiation. That is a very dangerous bluff. That is a very dangerous bluff. I saw firsthand what happened in the United Kingdom when the view was, vote for this, it'll be soft and then we'll negotiate, et cetera, and they end up. And they're still 10 years later trying to undo. what people didn't think they were voting for, but what they ended up having. You know, we often hear about that knife at the throat strategy as it related to the Quebec referendum.

So all of that is in play. And even David E.B. has commented about that. Cannot have bad behavior decide who gets engaged with by the federal government. We need to hold this country together. We need to fight for this country every single chance we get. We need to stand up for Canada. And we need to make sure we're supporting every province and territory with equal respect. So, I mean, there's a lot of really, you know, toxic language actually starting to emerge. And I think that's also, by the way, another concern of all of this as we have this debate over sort of four and a half months, close to five months. I think people are worried about the divisions just getting deeper.

The voice is getting louder. The damage that can be done just by having the conversation about having this vote, you know, emotions run high. And I think most people looking at this sort of objectively are worried about the divisions that are just going to be so exposed. Yeah, because while this isn't a binary yes, no question, the emotions are binary. Either you want to stay in Canada or you want to go. There's not a lot of room for gray area. As much as Daniel Smith talks about this sovereignty within United Canada, weird, mushy middle zone, That's not how people think about this question ultimately.

It's is our national flag the blue Alberta flag or is our national flag the red and white Canadian flag? And this is going to really set the tone for a very fraught several months. Like July 1st is going to have a very different feeling this year. And also the other thing I would add, if I can just build on that, Daniel Smith keeps using sort of the phrase move on. In other words, we can have this vote on the 19th and we can move on. And the credibility of that conclusion is being challenged by an awful lot of people because once you open up all those divisions and all this emotion, as Jason and I are both saying, runs high, I don't know that people after October 19th are going to be moving on.

First of all, we don't know what the result's going to be. So let's just put that out there. But regardless of the result, the conversation is around the premise. of leaving the country, and I don't see how that just sort of vanishes and everything's A-O-K on October 20th. Let's see if Toronto advisors know their group insurance providers. Oh, excuse me. Who has extensive expertise in both traditional group benefits and special risk solutions? Beneva. That's right. Who offers adaptable plans that cater to businesses

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decide to put a question on the ballot at all? And then why do it in this far more convoluted way? A lot of observers were saying that Justice Shana Leonard's ruling that you couldn't put forth this clear question and the Citizens Initiative petition because there was no proper consultation of First Nations. People thought that was her out, that that was her chance to just leave this aside saying the courts have tied my hand, we'd have to appeal and fight and duty to consult and whatnot. So let's just leave it for now, not put it on this already planned ballot in October with none other referendum questions. But that's not Daniel Smith lived reality within her party. Kathleen was referring to the polls earlier. The polls would show that most Albertans,

67% want to stay in Canada. The rest are don't. But that rest is almost whole. resident within the United Conservative Party membership and voter base. More than half of Daniel Smith's own party wants to separate, would vote yes, to leave Canada. And Daniel Smith has to deal with that and figure out a way to appease those people. And she's been appeasing these people and giving them oxygen for their movement for more than a year. First, she lowered the threshold, which they'd had to succeed to get this Citizens Initiative, passed and force a referendum. The signature collection time for Citizens' initiatives will.

be extended from 90 days to 120 days. We are also improving the process by setting the threshold to be 10% of the number of eligible voters who participated in the last general election, as opposed to being either 10 or 20% of total registered voters. Then when there was an earlier ruling back in the late fall, she basically passed new legislation to nullify and set aside that court ruling to allow them to keep going forward. And now, at this point, with it not being very long before her planned October 19th referendum, she had to figure out some option. And she was aware, and she stated this repeatedly, that if she put the straightforward question,

should we leave or not on the ballot, another court would come down for the third time and knock it down. So she said this was the best option. It avoids the Federal Clarity Act because it's not a straight leave or go question. It'll avoid the courts. and if it gives us a positive or I guess a negative response that Alberta voters indeed do want to work toward separating from Canada, then it would set in motion a legal process. Now, what that legal process exactly would look like. She's not clear on when it would lead to a referendum vote.

She's not clear on. There are appeals that will be going forward on the earlier ruling. Maybe there will be some formal consultation somewhere down the road with First Nations and the province. on separation. But right now, she's claiming this is the best question she could get on the ballot to satisfy all various sides. And nobody on any of the sides, though, seem to be very happy with it is the issue, one of the issues she's facing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I want to get into that with you.

But just first, on the point that she's outwardly making this argument, right, that this is about democracy. and she keeps talking about 700,000 Albertans. She references the pro-separation petition with 300,000 signatures and then another one with 400,000 signatures from people who want to remain in Canada. And just what has been, Jason, some of the reaction to this math

and to this democracy argument that she's making? 700,000 is such a problematic number for her to use, but darned if she's going to move off that talking point, She hasn't yet after so much challenge toward it. It is her talking point and she's sticking to it dead gum. So that's a combination of two numbers. One is 300,000 people. That's the number that the separatists from Stay Free Alberta say they had on their petition

that they submitted to Elections Alberta earlier this month. That number hasn't been verified because Elections Alberta hasn't counted it yet. Those boxes are all being sealed because of the ruling that overturned this question. That's the 300,000, which is alleged, claimed. 400,000 was counted and verified. That was the number of petition signatures on their referendum put forward by former Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lekazek, kind of with almost a satirical sort of shot-blocking attempt at a petition to put forward a question that Alberta should stay in Canada, yes or no, as opposed to Alberta should leave yes or no.

You know, at various points, he said different things, but certainly over the last, year he's saying the Alberta government should not be using my petition as a fig leaf to get a separatist petition on the ballot. We will fight vigorously for the next six months to make sure that Albertans don't give the Premier a permission to hold a referendum and holding a referendum. And sure enough, that's what Daniel Smith has said. She's chri-picked old quotes from him in the NDP saying that if you want, believe in this, just put it to a ballot, put it to a vote, let's settle this issue. but a lot of the people who actually signed this petition, they've called into a bunch of CBC radio shows I've been on,

and they feel gaslit. They feel totally robbed of the intent of what they're doing. They feel like their signatures are being manipulated and abused by Danielle Smith, who just is working on putting these forward on a sort of separatist referendum to appease the separatists within the United Conservative base. I do think it's important to clarify, though, because there's been a lot of sort of back and forth about, of what Thomas Lukasik intended.

If you take a look at the application, he did check off legislative or policy question. And once you check that off, then it's ultimately up to the legislature to decide whether it ends up being a voting in the legislature, it ends up being a referendum, right? They decide. But at the bottom, he indicated that he wanted a referendum.

He also said that on the application, that it was a referendum question. And therein lies the confusion around this, because when he first came forward with this, the legislation, remember, it's been amended a few times. The legislation at the time was you could not have two questions that were the same. And so he thought if he could get his question approved, then the separatists wouldn't be able to have their question, right? It basically stopped them in their tracks. Then that provision was taken out of the legislation.

And you could have two questions on the same topic. And so seeing what they were going to do, he wanted MLAs to basically declare themselves, whether they're separatists or not. And I think it's fair to say also that a lot of the people who did sign wanted this to be a vote among MLAs. I mean, that was what they wanted. And they've been very explicit about that. But that is what Smith keeps pointing to. If you take a look at the actual application that he put forward, a legislative or policy question can still be a referendum question.

Even some people who oppose separatism quite fiercely, like former Premier Jason Kennedy, have been quite critical of Thomas Lekazek for basically creating a buffet of different opinions on what he was doing and offering one possible route for Danielle Smith to go ahead and use for the referendum. I will point out, though, that up until the separatist position was blocked in courts, the UCP was never seemed very much in favor of doing anything with the Forever Canadian position. Yeah, they feel of love later. Yeah, this was a very late-breaking position of theirs that seemed quite convenient. Yeah.

Kathleen, Jason mentioned that nobody's happy with this referendum on a referendum. And, you know, within her own party, two UCP ministers resigned just before she announced the referendum. There's speculation that they did so because they opposed it and they support remaining in Canada. And just how significant is that? Does Smith have control over her own caucus? Well, first of all, yeah, Nate Horner, the now former finance minister, decided that he'd had enough in that portfolio. and Matt Jones, who was one of a team of health ministers, also decided to resign for cabinet. And they're both very explicit. They don't want a referendum on separation.

But by the same token, they're not saying that's the reason why they resigned. They gave other reasons. And so people are going to speculate. And, you know, it's inevitable that that's going to be the case. But first of all, we know just from polling that a large portion of the UCP base supports separation. So, you know, that's an issue. Rob Smith, who's the president of the UCP, has decided to be neutral. We will not be coming out in favor or against as a political party,

but the representatives who have been elected as MLAs, they're going to be making their stances known. Having said that, he's also sort of suggested the UCP may have to rethink who and what they are, should the let's have a referendum question succeed. So, you know, that's kind of interesting to observe. So, you know, they very clearly are some differences. But you know what? The separatists are divided, Jamie.

I mean, that's the other super interesting thing. And again, Jason did really excellent reporting on that that I know that you're going to talk about. You know, you take a look at Ms. Sylvester or Jeff Rath. Those are the two names. I think most people associate with Stay Free Alberta. Even they don't completely agree. They're sort of a line. Jeff Rath wants Daniel Smith punted.

I now say that the road to independence runs street. directly over top of Daniel Smith. And we replace her as leader. We get an interim leader in place. We cancel all of her stupid referendum questions. And we have one referendum question on the ballot, which is simply, do you agree that Alberta shall cease to be a province of Canada to become an independent state?

That's the only question that Alberta. And Ms. Sylvester says, yeah, maybe that, or maybe just give us our question back rather than a question that they don't support. You know, the way we see this is that they're seeing a very real threat here, and I think they should be, to the fact that, you know what, maybe we can win this vote. And I 100% believe we can. So I think what they're trying to do is delay the process as much as they can. But then there's other voices in the separatist camp who think that this path that Daniel Smith is taking is actually okay. Because they know that the support is not there to actually win us straight up and down, yes or no, should we separate?

and they see this as an opportunity to build support for it. And probably feel that they will have an easier time persuading people to say yes to a referendum later than a straight-up question about separation now. So I think they're looking at it more strategically and perhaps the others are looking at more tactically. Jason, I know you interviewed Mitch Sylvester, the CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project, who also led the group behind the people. the petition, you get a pretty colorful interview with him. I think it was today, right? Just this morning, yeah. So Kathleen painted the picture of this lawyer, Jeff Rath,

and this movement leader, Mitch Sylvester. And they're kind of roaming in the same direction, but Jeff Rath is very, very outspoken and blunt. Mitch Sylvester is blunt in his own way, but Rath takes it to the next level. I mean, Rath was even saying, I think Mitch would make a great interim premiere. We got, Daniel Smith lost all moral authority to govern and we should bring in Mitch Sylvester, our separatist movement leader.

Mitch Sylvester, I asked him about that. He said, oh, you know what, it's a compliment, but I'm a 71 year old retired owner of a sporting goods store. I don't think that's really something I should entertain. But maybe, maybe I'd like to be part of the transition if Alberta did separate and formed its own country. Maybe I can be a senator for it, which is. A very, you know, colorful and weird thing to hear somebody saying, that's sort of in fantasy land. It's a lot of a fantastical idealistic utopian ideas that a lot of separatists have, but what their own country of Alberta could look like. But in terms of brass tax, Mitch Sylvester, like Jeff Rat, is not happy with this compromise question and with Daniel Smith taking a pro-federalist tone saying, I will support and advocate for the remain option.

So he's considering his options. He's talking to the various thousands of canvassers who helped him get his petition completed and accomplished. And he's thinking there are a couple options. One is to force a special meeting of the UCP to review Daniel Smith's leadership potentially putting her out. That's the same thing that activist members who were against Jason Kenney did in 2022 to basically push him out. That's one thing he might do. another thing he might do is force a special meeting to change the UCP's position on separatism to make this party that's oddly neutral in this very polarizing question, give them mistakes,

make them a pro separatism party, or perhaps make the UCP force the cabinet to change the question to something that's more clear, courts be damned. So he hasn't really tipped his hand. He says he's going to reveal something probably in June on what he's actually going to do, but he's gearing up for some kind of fight with Daniel Smith on what her plans are. Given the fact that all of these people are pissed off about this and rankled about it, like could Smith be in real trouble here politically? She could?

Mitch Sylvester suggested that. So two years ago when Daniel Smith had her last leadership review, she got 91.5%, which is an incredible number that a lot of leaders would be jealous of. He's saying right now he doesn't think she'd get 70%. or maybe not even 60% that people are that ticked off in the movement. And that's sort of number while technically enough to pass, traditionally for party leaders around the country and leadership reviews, that is maybe the time to say maybe the party doesn't want me, let alone the general public, so maybe I should leave. So he's suggesting that she's in danger.

Rob Smith, the party president, thinks that most people are with her. It does seem that there are a lot of people who are separatists within the United Conservatives. ranks who, A, kind of like this idea that there is a slow walk of a question, as Kathleen said, that maybe we need to build our support toward actually leaving and maybe this soft yes, soft leave vote could be our recipe for victory as we educate more people on the benefits of the Republic of Alberta. The other thing that's going to animate this conversation for United Conservatives is A, they generally like Danielle Smith.

And she gives them a lot. She's given them a lot of energy and a lot of things on their. priorities from trans issues to banning vote tabulators to palsies on pronouns and pride flags in schools. But the other thing is that who next? So we dump her. Are we going to get somebody better or worse? So I don't know if her leadership's definitely in trouble, but surely she's mindful of this.

If she wasn't mindful of this, we probably wouldn't be talking about an active separatism referendum at all. Yeah, I would say, I noticed even when she did her news conference, and I've mentioned this a couple of times, but when I saw her at that news conference, Jason, you and I were chatting about it, there was tension emanating from her, both visually, just looking at her face

and even her voice, that I have not seen before. I mean, you can tell, I mean, no doubt she's feeling pressure all the time. I have no doubt about that. I don't think that's new. But she's one of the best communicators, political communicators on the country.

And usually she can mask that pretty well, but you could see it, right? You could see and feel the tension and the stress that she's under in a way that I had not seen before. And it's going to be interesting just to watch over the next number of months, sort of, you know, the extent to which she sort of shows that she's feeling it. Because this is the first time, really, that Danielle Smith has visibly let down. the activist grassroots of her party. And she's been operating all these years knowing what can happen to a UCP leader when you disappoint their activist grassroots.

Yeah. Also, very high-stakes stuff to be directly involved in the future of the country. And people who are, if I could just add to that excellent point, Jamie, there are a lot of people out there who don't want this conversation to be had at all, who are very frustrated and arguing. that the only reason we are having this discussion is so Daniel Smith can keep her job. The only reason that Canada's future

as a 10 province country is on the line is for Daniel Smith to appease the United Concertives and keep her own job. And worth noting, the Angusree poll actually reflected that as well and was actually, I don't remember the exact number. It wasn't a majority, but it was a reasonably high number

among the UCP as well that they sort of saw a part of the motivation for this is Daniel Smith trying to basically secure her own position as premier, because as you know, conservative premiers in this province don't last. It's been a long time since conservative premier led their party to a second election victory. And the last one to do that was Ralph Klein. At least when Jacques Perrizo and Renee LeVec, the Quebec Premier has put forth separatist referendums, they wanted separation. Yeah, they ran on it. That was...

Daniel Smith did not run on this. has said she doesn't want it. And yet. And yet. Here we are. Guys, this actually feels like a great place for us to end. Lots for us to pick up on at a later date. We're not ending. This is to be continued. We're renting space near studio. Indeed. I'll just say talk to you soon. But thank you for making the time for us today. You bet. It's a pleasure. Thanks, Jamie. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Pousson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. Go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.