The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Alberta Chose Canada. What Happens Now?

Episode Date: October 21, 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney says Albertans have chosen Canada, while Premier Danielle Smith says voters have backed a stronger Alberta within a united country. So what does the referendum result say about the mood in Alberta, and where does the province go from here? Martha Hall Findlay, director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, and journalist Jen Gerson join us to discuss. Then, security expert and author Patrick Lennox looks beyond Alberta at claims of foreign interests fuelling the separatist movement and what that could mean for Canada's security and sovereignty.Donate Today : https://tvo.me/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a difference a year can make. When you support TVO, you're helping bring trusted stories, inspiring ideas, and lifelong learning to people across Ontario. And as a thank you, you can receive the 2027 TVO calendar. Filled with beautiful photography from the documentaries and programs your support helps make possible. It's a year-long reminder of the learning, beauty, and discovery your generosity supports. Donate $40 or more to claim yours today at TVO.com slash calendar 2027 and make every month a little more inspiring. After months of passionate campaigning and millions of dollars, we finally have an answer to one of the biggest questions this country has faced. Albertans have voted overwhelmingly to stay in Canada.

It not only sends a very clear message to Premier Danielle Smith that we do not need to. another referendum, but it also sends a message to the rest of Canada that Alberta will not be the weak link in Confederation. That was Thomas Lukasik, leader of the Forever Canadian Movement responding to the early returns late last night. So what happens to the separatist movement now? And what does this all mean for the future of Alberta in Canada? We dig into the result and what happens next. I'm Jay and J. J. Noghathan and this is the rundown. Crime Minister Mark Carney, welcome the early results last night saying, quote, Albertans chose Canada.

What about Premier Danielle Smith? Well, she issued a brief statement saying she was, quote, very pleased, and that Albertans have voted for a stronger Alberta in a United Canada. She also announced she'd be giving a live address on Tuesday night after we've recorded this episode. So what is the mood like on the ground there? And how does this province move forward? Martha Hall, Finley, Jen Gerson, great to have you both back.

on the rundown. I know you've had very busy evening, so really appreciate you guys joining us on the line. For our viewers and our listeners, I do want to have a mention a disclaimer. We are recording this panel at 11.30 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, October 20th. Right now, the time of this recording, nearly 76% of Albertans who voted voted to stay. Jen, I want to get your take throughout this whole process. Help us understand what message is Alberta sending to Ottawa? Look, I think that the results are highly representative of how Albertans are actually feeling about issues around separatism and even I would go so far to say issues around the trade relationship with the United States and that fraud relationship that's happening right now. I do think that Albertans are by and large genuinely quite angry about the last year, last 10 years or so of federal government. and I do think continued repair work needs to happen. However, I walk away from all of this thinking that the entire referendum was a frankly pretty juvenile political stunt that put a lot of Albertans at risk of foreign interference and worse for probably not very much gain.

And I don't think that that is a minority opinion in Alberta. Martha? I will necessarily disagree, but it's what we have, right? we ended up having to do it and for whatever reason. I was struck by two things and still am. There's a lot of talk about the winners and the losers, right? And I just, I don't subscribe to that at all. These are people in my province who are on the one hand concerned about the whole fact of having this question

and they wanted to express they wanted to stay part of Canada and then a whole lot of Albertans who said something different. It's not a case of winning and losing. it's a case of it's pretty clear we have a fantastic country, but there's no shame in saying it's still a work in progress and what do we need to do to actually achieve that progress.

This has been tough. Families have had struggles at the kitchen table with disagreements. The other thing I will say is the other nine questions. So yes, we're hovering around 76% on the no versus

on a leave question. the other nine questions as of right now, all but one of them have significantly more than 50% voting yes. Right. So we have a lot of work to do on the immigration questions, the constitutional questions. None of them are binding, but they're definitely directional for the government of Alberta. Well, pick up on those questions shortly and where we go from here. But I actually want to play a snippet of a message Carney and his office released on Thanksgiving. on October 12th leading up to the vote. Let's have a look at that.

Albertans will have the opportunity to make an important decision about their future. I grew up in Alberta. I'm back home a lot these days because we are building big things again in Alberta. Truth is, we can't achieve any of this if we're divided. All right. As Prime Minister Carney explains, he grew up in Alberta and according to Ipsis is the most favorable politician in the province right now. Jen, what effect effective any, did Prime Minister Carney's pro-Canadian message have on all burdens? I think that it's very possible that he mobilized more people to the polls. We have a pleasantly high voter turnout rate, which is what was always going to determine this vote.

75, roughly to 26% stay versus leave, demonstrates to me that no part of this campaign over the last 18 or so months has been a persuasion campaign. That's about where separatism support has been for years, many, many, many years. We always knew that this was not about persuading people to stay in Canada or leave. This was about getting people to the polls. Who was going to show up on election day? Who was going to get a mail-in ballot and who was going to get advanced polls? The advanced polls and the advanced mail-in ballots were exceptionally high.

I think 40% of registered voters voted just the advanced polls in the mail-in ballots. So that was a really, really good sign. And we're seeing very high turnout. So as expected, with high voter turnout, the results are broadly reflective of how Albertans feel about the question. Martha, help us understand. There's a number of factors going on here. You know, you look to your neighbors to the south as well. But help us understand how much of a role did Carney have in sort of getting his message delivered to Albertans?

You agree completely with Jen. The biggest role he played was in coming out near the end to just encourage people to get out to vote. He actually, I think, appropriately, didn't weigh in. early. He didn't weigh in strongly early. I think because there's a view that in Quebec in the 95 referendum there was an awful lot of outside of

Quebec, you know, people going to the rallies, people from different parts of the country going in buses and people felt really good about that, but not necessarily Quebecers. And there's a view that in fact that effort, as well-intentioned as it might have been, might have even backfired and that the vote might have

even been closer than it otherwise would. And just in the sense of well-intentioned, but you know this is Quebec's business. I think an awful lot of Albertans would have felt the same. And so I think Prime Minister Carney managed that line. I think he trod carefully with it. And it really was an effort to get out of the vote. It is super interesting that the polling shows that as Jen said,

this split has been pretty consistent for years, right? This is the first time it's become so public. But after all of the effort, all of the charismatic individuals, is pushing this. All of the social media, potentially all of the foreign interferences has gone into this, and we're at the same place that we

were and have been for years, I think has to be actually part of the story. Jen, the 10th question on separation is the one taking up all of the airspace. What can you tell us about how Albertans perceive this question? This is a resounding

result that is a rejection of that question. I would even say of the 26% odd people who, or 26% of the population that voted for option two to eventually leave the province, you know, polling shows that those people aren't consistently pro succession either. The polling shows that about a third of those people are actually serious about independence. The rest of those people are trying to send a message, so it's a form of a protest vote. So the support for leaving Canada is a minority, even among people who vote for leaving Canada, Right? So this has never been a majority position. There has never been a serious majority of Albertans who are pushing for this referendum. The UCP government did not win a democratic mandate to hold this referendum. This has always been the bug bear of a fairly small group of people in Alberta who became organizationally competent and capable of taking over a mainstream and explicitly.

federalist party. Martha, I'll get you away in there. Well, I think, I agree completely. And I think the big issue now, there are two big issues. One is, it still hasn't been perfect. There's still a fair number of people in Alberta who are pretty upset. And again, it can guarantee there are a lot of people still pretty upset with a relationship between the province and the federal government who still voted to stay as part of Canada.

It doesn't mean the status quo is perfect. And I do think there's a lot of work to do. and frankly, a lot of us feel the hard work starts today. But we at least have wind in our sales to be able to say there is a mandate to work collaboratively to actually fix some of those problems. The other thing, though, is what happens to the UCP. There's no question that the separatist movement, some of these, and it's part of its leftover from COVID.

There's an awful lot of overlap from the anti-vaccine people, the trucker convoy people, the separatists. There's no question of the infiltration into the UCP. The United Conservative Party is not united by any stretch of the imagination. And they're having an AGM in November. At least one rioting association has called for there to be a leadership vote. To me, what happens then will be fascinating both for the party and for the Premier, frankly. And then the province is going to have to have some very serious questions about

how do Albertans feel that they are represented in their provincial? government and I suspect will see changes. Martha, quickly, on sort of what Jen was talking about, do the referendum results represent a true separatist movement or is this a protest vote? Was this a message that, you know, things within the province, there are some people who are just unhappy with the federal government right now? 100%. I think we, you know, we just talked about this as a minority of the minorities are hardcore

separatists, which is even better news in the sense that if they're, if. If you had 23% vote in, yes, knowing so much of that was not really separation. Because remember, this was a referendum to have a referendum. Right. So a lot of people felt that there was no real downside to sending a message. Of course, you sort of ask to whom are you think you're sending the message? Because Justin Trudeau's gone. But in any case, I do think, though, as powerful as this may feel,

as a support for the country in the grand scheme of things. That protest vote was there. People are concerned. There are legitimate things we need to do. A perfect example is pretty much every general election is decided

by the sheer number of votes in Ontario, Tibet, in Atlantic Canada. Pretty much every general election is decided before Alberta votes. or BC votes are counted, that can be fixed. We can talk about electoral reform, but it's pretty obvious that that means that people out here,

I mean, we have a democracy, but we don't particularly feel represented. And the same with the Senate, right? Albert only has four seats in the Senate. That's not a representative of where Albert is now. So we can fix some of those things. Well, Jen, Martha had mentioned those nine other questions. She brings up the Senate as well.

Of course, one of the questions there. let's dig into those a little bit. What can we look at from those results, you know, as we talk about, those were a lot of yeses from one to nine. There, is there a conversation that needs to be had there? Is there going to be some difficult times for the province? Yes and no. Yeah, yes and no. To be honest with you, I disagree with Martha on this one.

I think a lot of those questions were exceptionally poorly worded questions. You saw voter turnout dropped dramatically when we moved away from the 10 questions. And bluntly, we've already had Danielle Smith herself say that, you know, whether or not she would respect the outcome of those votes. votes was irrelevant. So there's almost nothing in those questions, there's nothing in those questions, or nothing, no policy in any of those questions that Daniel Smith did not have the Democratic mandate to pursue prior to this referendum. And her choice to hold a referendum on those questions was really just a sop to her separatist base before it was announced that she was going to hold the referendum on succession. So there was this, this was, this is an

was management of internal domestic politics. Now, where I'll agree with Martha is that I'll say this, we should always be working to make the country better or more fair. Like, like, we should just, should always be a mandate to do that. I think when we're talking about immigration, for example, there is a genuine appetite for giving provinces more control over immigration coming into their systems, particularly if provinces are overwhelmingly providing the housing, the health care and the social services that is going to support those immigrants. So, like, I actually think there's probably quite a lot of openness to conversations about that with other provinces.

but bluntly, I think there's zero appetite for constitutional reform in 2026. I know a lot of conservatives in Alberta have been talking about Senate reform for a really long time. In my opinion, Senate reform is to conservatives, what electoral reform is to progressives. It's a very, very niche issue that has almost no popular support for reforming. I like the Senate better than I like the House of Commons, to be honest with you. I think that the Senate often does a much better job at committee level than the House of Commons does. but at the same time, I don't think that Alberta

would be getting more of its policies forwarded or more of its preferred decisions made if it had more bodies in the Senate. I don't think that that is where political capital needs to be spent right now. Martha, I've got about 30 seconds or so so I've got to get you in there

in response to some of that. I agree that the Senate, the Senate's a red herring question has been around for decades and right now because the House is so incompetent. I mean, the committee work has become just simply incompetent.

Thank heavens, we have a Senate right now that is actually exercising sober second thought. So I don't disagree with that. I just think there's a lot that can happen that's not requiring constitutional reform

that can be solved or at least a lot, a long way to improving things in terms of representation and voice, that at this point now, the Premier and the Prime Minister have an opportunity

to say let's collaborate more on some of these. Martha, Jen, we're going to leave it there. Clearly, this conversation does not end with yesterday's vote. So we will carry on this conversation. Really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. Thanks for having you. The referendum results are obviously important to Canada and to Alberta, first and foremost.

But one security expert says the consequences will travel far beyond this country and that there are foreign interests who have been fueling the separatist movement. Patrick Lennox, great to have you on the rundown. How are you doing? Great. Thanks for having me. Of course. I actually want to start a conversation with an excerpt from your book, your book on treason, Alberta separatism, foreign interference, and Canada's survival in a revolutionary age. Now the passage reads, Canada's survival hinges on its ability to remain united and self-determining in the pursuit of its national interest and security.

Can a separatist movement working against these broader interests of the Canadian polity be considered treasonous? Treason, when alleged, carries extremely. negative moral valence, but to use the word reveals a vulnerability and anxiety about the stability of a society and the fragility of its customs, norms, values, and collective identity. How did you come to characterize the Alberta separatism movement as treasonous? It's a good question, and that's why I wrote the book. I had originally not thought it was treasonous. When I looked at the criminal code definition of treason, it doesn't really apply.

apply because the criminal code definition under section 46 is really about violence against the head of state. And that's not what we're talking about here. So it took me a while to come around to the idea of looking at this through the lens of moral political philosophy and understanding what betrayal at the level of the nation state looks like, which is by definition treason. And it's a, it's an ancient concept and it goes back all the way through human society and every society has had a concept that delineates between those who are working with the group and those who are working against it. You need to have an idea of how to determine that. What is the line for when, you know, people are betraying you, when they're selling you out, when they are giving you up to their animal, to, to,

to the enemy. Well, you mentioned, you were quite hesitant to use that word in the beginning. What crossed that line for you to be like, okay, you know what, this is it? This hit the checklist here. Well, there were a few things. The main thing was when I watched a video of one of the main separatist leaders, Jeffrey Roth, discussing at length his third visit with high-level officials from the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., he described a scenario which took place in a secure facility. And over multiple hours, they laid out a plan for a post-referendum Alberta. A plan for the U.S. to recognize Alberta as an independent state,

a plan for the United States to provide a $500 billion loan. Immediately upon a successful referendum result, Alberta could trigger a $500 billion line of credit so that when we negotiate with Ottawa, we'll be negotiating from a position of strength and not from weakness. Collateralized against the Alberta oil and gas reserves to help with the transition to becoming a state. They've described pipelines, pension plans, currency, communications plans, even. And it really started to creep in at that moment. point that something very untoward was happening here, especially at a time when Canada and the

United States all of a sudden are no longer the great allies that we once were. So Patrick, you mentioned that there's no precedent in the democratic world for what we are seeing in Alberta. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke out against claims comparing the vote to Brexit. What are we actually seeing here, though? So David Cameron ran on an election platform that specifically said, if you vote for my party, the conservative party, we will have a referendum on whether we remain or leave the European Union. Very explicit. He didn't expect to be elected. He didn't expect to get a majority government. He did. And his first act of parliament was to push through legislation to frame a referendum around

the UK leaving. the European Union. All very democratic, all very transparent, all very above board. The United Conservative Party in Alberta is not a separatist party. They are not like the PQ in Quebec. They are by constitution a federalist party. They were formed in 2017 as a federalist party. Jason Kenney won a majority government in 2019 as a federalist.

and something happened in the interim, COVID. COVID happened and that radicalized base, a faction of the UCP, to the point where they managed to oust Jason Kenney before he could run a second time in a general election in 2023. They replaced Jason Kenney with Daniel Smith, who was also a far-right conspiracist and someone who had dabbled in COVID denialism and is also who flirted with separation as well.

And so she was the choice of the faction of the party that comes from sort of the wild rose and from the far right. And she won in 2023, a general election in Alberta, regularly scheduled as a federalist in a very boring campaign, very down the middle. It was about health care. It was about mental health supports. It was about tax cuts.

Pretty normal stuff that put most voters to sleep. And then the Liberal Party won the 45th general election and formed government at the federal level for the fourth time. And the next day, the UCP introduced legislation that sent us down this path. Very clear that remnants of that freedom convoy is sort of pushing this. But what's interesting from this conversation is also foreign interference. There are competing theories. A popular global mail piece had said that really U.S. intervention is following the vote.

Whereas we have Alberta Prosperity Projects, Jeffrey Roth, fearing that it's communist China. Who is Alberta's biggest threat? who's Alberta's biggest threat? I think Alberta's biggest threat is the separatist party, the separatist movement. What about it? When we're talking, we're talking U.S., we're talking communist Chinese,

the communist Chinese, do they have anything in this one? We talk about sort of these theories, or is it really the separatist movement here? So Canada's biggest threat is the United States of America right now. China could be considered a threat as well, but also, and probably more so than China, right now is Russia. And Russia has been involved in meddling in this referendum campaign

through a very targeted and specific and sophisticated disinformation campaign. It's designed to divide Alberta's polity. And the United States has also been very explicit in demonstrating, and Scott Besant has given Alberta a soft offer of annexation, effectively saying, why don't we just let them come down and become part of the United States? I hear they've got lots of oil and gas up there, he said. So when you consider the fact that you've got two superpowers,

Russia and the United States, with their eyes on this referendum, and leveraging it to break Canada apart, Canada, one of the most successful liberal democracies in human history, yeah. There's an issue there. I want to bring it back locally. What does election Alberta's security breach mean for the current state of democracy and the future of privacy?

So Alberta's voters list was stolen by the separatists, and it was put on an American-made get-out-the-vote app. And in modern democracy... Red flags everywhere right now. Exactly. But data is power, right? Data is power and it allows you to access voters, particularly persuadable voters, with targeted psychological warfare. And that was the lesson that we learned in Brexit. It was a lesson we should have learned in the Scottish Revolution referendum two years before that.

But it's continued through Catalonia and the Catalonian referendum in Spain, which is also another society. Recession referendum, but more catastrophically in the Ukraine. Secession referenda preceded Russian annexation of Crimea and the Donbass region of the Ukraine. You referred to the referendum using a technique called anchoring or anchoring bias. Help us understand. What does that tell us? So this is entirely unprecedented, right, to have a 10 question, 10 ballot. referendum. Never in Canadian history has there been such a thing. In the entire history of

Alberta as a province, there's only been seven questions put to the electorate. In Canada, at the federal level, there's only been three. We do not have a tradition of direct democracy. We are a representative democracy. We elect representatives to govern for us in a pluralistic manner. That's really important here. What the UCP is trying to do and what they've done is flip democracy on its head in the province by saying we didn't run on this but we're going to put it at you anyways and a lot of people will say well why what's wrong with that just let the people decide well the people don't want to talk about this the vast majority of the people want nothing to do with separation they would

like to talk about two-tier health care they would like to talk about 90% of the country's AI data centers being built in Alberta on our agricultural land. They would like to talk about the state of public education in the province, but none of those questions are on a ballot. Amongst the concerns we've discussed, there is a major tension point in the province with a violation of indigenous treaty rights.

In a hypothetical world, could this movement advance without negotiations, without First Nations at the table? Not according to the country. courts, according to the courts, two judges have ruled that this referendum is unconstitutional. Putting the question of Alberta's separation on a ballot is unconstitutional. That was found twice by two separate judges in the lead up to this. And the government decided to go anyways and do it anyways. Regardless of the outcome of the vote, what is the state of Alberta after this state?

Divided. Divided and in all likelihood very distrustful of democracy in the province. Our democratic processes and outcomes will start to come under scrutiny. People will start to doubt the integrity of them and the integrity of these processes. And that's how democracy dies. When people don't trust the process, they don't trust the outcome, and that's how you get into these vicious. cycles of elections, denialism like we've seen in the United States.

Patrick, we are going to leave it there. I want to thank you so much for joining us on the Rendo. Thanks for having me. I have to ask, did you stay up late to watch the Alberta referendum results? How do you feel about the outcome? Let us know, send us an email to rundown at tvo.org or drop us a comment on our YouTube page. Until then, I will see you tomorrow. Here's something we're working on. It's one of the reasons Nasson University is important. We focus on trying to get people who might find that an attractive career into medicine, trained and training in the North so that they're ready for that long-term career afterwards.

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