The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Alberta Referendum: How Far Could It Go?

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

In just a few months, Alberta voters may weigh a referendum on separation as a coalition pushes the case for staying in Canada. What's driving the renewed separatist push, and how strong is the argument against it? Jen Gerson of The Line and Lead Not Leave joins us. Then, Ottawa's climate agenda under scrutiny after the Carney government scrapped the consumer carbon price, EV mandate, and oil and gas cap. Is this a retreat from climate action or a policy reset? Martha Hall Findlay and Caroline Brouillette weigh in.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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not taken seriously. How did we get here? Find us wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to check out the video version of the show on the TVO Today YouTube channel. Hope to see you then. Premier Danielle Smith recently laid out the stakes for an upcoming referendum in Alberta. Now is the time for Albertans to decide whether we want to spend the time, expense, and effort pursuing separation or whether Albertans want to remain in Canada. Now, the October vote isn't binding. So if the majority say they want to pursue separation, that wouldn't mean the end of Canada as we know it. What it would mean is another referendum at a later date. But no surprise, people are lining up on both sides to try to make their case. Hey Alberta, on October 19th, we have a choice.

Keep sending our wealth east or finally keep what we build. We're fighting for Canada. We're fighting for the country we love. We're fighting for the future of our province. We look at the state of the debate, the realities on the ground, and the fight for federalism. Then, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been working closely with Alberta, especially on the energy file. Last month, the Feds and the province finalized a major deal that could see a pipeline built from Alberta to the West Coast. Now that kicked up a lot of criticism, including from members of the Liberal Party itself. So, are the critics right? Is the Prime Minister pursuing economic growth at the expense of the environment? We dig into the government's climate record.

Welcome to the rundown. In just a few months, Alberta will weigh in on whether the province should hold a referendum on separation. Now, a group of journalists, academics, and former politicians are coming together to make the case for staying in Canada. Jen Gerson is a co-founder of the line and a member of the Lead Not Leave Initiative, and she joins us from Ottawa. How are you doing, Jen? I'm doing well. I am doing well. All right, we have been talking about this for what seems like several, several months, but help us understand it does feel like that. Was Alberta always headed towards a referendum? No, no, that was a choice. Alberta separatism has been a longstanding element of Alberta politics. You can go back years and find that there's been support for a separatist movement of some kind, really since the national energy.

program in the 80s. But it's always pulled kind of in the 20s, maybe in the 30 percentile. It's always been a factor, an underlying kind of fringe movement in Alberta politics, particularly Alberta conservative politics. But traditionally, premiers and premiers like Ralph Klein, rather famously, just basically went to these people and said, look, there's no answers to the grievances that you are suffering through separation mandates. So the conservative movement had until now been very successful at saying to those people, yeah, you know, what, your anger is legitimate, your grievances are legitimate. We don't fix it by separate. And that was a very effective attack for 40 years. What changed now is I think you have a much more fragile political coalition

underpinning Daniel Smith. You have a premier who feels the need to on one hand, you know, advocate for federalism openly, but at the same time make actual decisions that have eased the path for the separatists in her party to put a referendum on the table. And to do that in order to try and maintain an increasingly brittle conservative coalition that comprises her party. Help me understand right now where we stand

is support for independence growing right now? You know, that's really tough to say. You know, you talk to really credible pollsters and they would say, you know, the support for separation in some form or another, maybe 30%, maybe sealing of 40% in the right conditions.

So the actual percentage of people who are highly committed to create their own nation and lead Alberta is absolutely a minority prospect. That is not a majority position. But that's not really my concern. My concern is the other underlying problems. If you ask Albertan's questions

like, are you satisfied with the status quo or do you want to send a message to Ottawa? Oh, boy. do we get into another conversation entirely? You get into the 40, even 70% support for questions like that. So if people are going to the ballot box, the words that are written on the referendum are not going to be the things they're actually voting on, right?

They're not going to be voting to stay or leave Canada. They are going to be voting, and a lot of them are going to be voting thinking, well, I know, this will show Mark Kearney that we're serious, right? Especially now that the referendum as it's being posed, isn't a binding referendum. It's a referendum to have a referendum. Right. That has just decreased the perceived cost of sending a protest vote. Help us understand a little bit about the leaders right now of the separatist movement. Who are they? Are these names that should be taken seriously? Right. So I think what's happened now is now that we have an actual vote on the

books, the leadership around the separatist movement, which has always been a very sort of decentralized, very inco-hote movement. There were many factions within the separatists. We've been looking for different things. Like, there were people who are highly committed to an independent Alberta. There are people who are committed to this idea that if we hold a vote, we will have leverage in order to renegotiate confederation with Ottawa. And there are people who are committed to like, hey, we're going to be annexed by America. All of these people kind of come together in this very loose, very messy coalition. And up until to date, the most public leaders of that movement have repeatedly like Jeff

Wrath and Mitch Sylvester, who are effective grassroots leader. They have been very effective at speaking to a lot of anger and a lot of outrage, especially a lot of cultural anger and a lot of cultural outrage, particularly among rural Albertans and some urban Albertans too. But they aren't regarded as mainstream, or for lack of a better term, respectable. They don't have kind of democratic legitimacy or credibility outside of those rural pockets. So I think what we're starting to see happen now that there's a vote on the books is there's a new class of more credible leadership. I think the top leadership contender now is someone like Keith Wilson, who's a lawyer who actually debated Jason Kenney a couple of weeks ago, actually very effectively.

He doesn't come across as unhinged. He's actually pretty grounded in his arguments and his approaches. I think many of his arguments are misguided and pretty easy to refute on factual grounds, but he does seem to have this ability to make credible sounding arguments that at the same time speak to the real feelings of his followers. And that makes him much more potent as a separatist leader than some of the previous ones. Well, this brings me to lead, not leave,

an initiative that you're a part of, help me understand. You talked about the status quo. Tell me what the goal is and sort of how, I am curious if these are the right voices to be able to talk to Albertans and help me understand that. Yeah, so lead not leave is an interesting initiative. I mean, I lovingly call lead not leave my nerd herd, right?

Because these are some of the most policy wonky people in the province. And not necessarily partisan, though certainly some of them are partisan. But they're credible policy people who wanted to come together and say, look, let's actually test some of these ideas and policies. Let's put forward a suite of things that we can actually move forward on as a province that actually addresses some of these grievances and demonstrates to the rest of Canada that there's a reason why so much leadership

comes out of this profits, right? That grievance has a tendency to create amazing leadership and amazing policy. And we've done that in the past. We've shown that. So, I mean, there was an amazing clip that was circulated by Dave Cornway a couple of days ago from 2003

where it was Ralph Klein standing up in front of the Progressive Conservative Party being, you know, railed at by separatists. And he said to these guys, Like, I understand that you're angry about the wheatboard. And I understand that you're angry about the gun registry. And I understand that you're angry about the Senate. But the, you know, separatism doesn't solve any of these problems.

And of course, 20 years later, the wheatboard's gone. The gun registry's gone. And honestly, I don't really care very much about the Senate. So, like, we have a demonstrated track record here of saying, yeah, we got a problem. We disagree with the way Ottawa is doing something. And we're a smaller province that doesn't necessarily have the democratic representation. as a result of our smaller size. But we punch above our weight.

And we do punch above our weight. You know, we can mobilize people to positive ends here. And if the separatism movement, which I don't want to have to go through, but if this is what we have to do, fine. Let's catalyze that movement into something productive and positive. I think a lot of eyes will be on October 19th, of course, across this country. And I am curious, even if separation doesn't happen, what impact is asking the question have on Alberta and the rest of the country?

My fear is like, okay, look, if this is an 85, 15% vote to stay, then we get to put this issue to bed for a generation, and we can focus on stuff that's productive and will actually help the lives of ordinary Albertans. And we don't have to waste so much of our political time and capital and something so improductive is this. But if the vote is closer to like 60-40, even to stay, now we have a live movement.

Now we have separatists who are going to try this again. And if the vote, God help us is 50-50 because so many people come to polls thinking, screw you Ottawa, I won't lose my passport. I'm not going to suffer any consequences, but screw you Ottawa. Well, now we have a live issue for the next several years of our lives in this process, right? All of our attention, energy and bandwidth have to get sapped into this for years. And I think that creates enormous economic uncertainty. It creates political uncertainty.

I think it'll potentially split the UCP. Like, I don't know what serious investor is going to look at this basket case and think, yeah, I'm going to throw a billion dollars down on that. Like, like, nothing about that screams confidence, security, stability, and also not even like self-control or confidence. Like it's self-confidence, right? None of that projects the types of things that we want to be projected about Alberta. Jen, we will be watching, as will the rest of Canada when it comes to the October 19th. Thank you so much for this. We really appreciate your time. Thank you.

The Carney government acts the tax, getting rid of the consumer carbon price. It also got rid of the electric vehicle mandate and the oil and gas cap. So we have to ask the question. Is Ottawa serious about fighting climate change? Joining us from Halifax, Martha Hall-Finley is the director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. And from Montreal, Catalina Brouillette is the executive director of Climate Action Network Canada. Thank you so much, both of you for joining us on the line. Really looking forward to this conversation. Catalina, I'm going to start with you.

Memorandum of Understanding between Alberta and Ottawa. you have, I believe you have described it as Mark Carney taking a sledgehammer to Canada's climate plan. How so? Well, I think first and foremost negotiating with the country's most prominent fossil fuel lobbyists was never going to yield ideal outcomes, both for Canadians and for the planet. The Prime Minister ran on the premise of industrial carbon pricing really being the key tool that he, he would use to drive emissions reductions in Canada under his leadership. And what we saw through this memorandum of understanding and the implementation agreement that was published a couple weeks ago is that he actually gave a concession

to Danielle Smith to postpone by many years the moment at which we would reach the headline price for $130 per ton of carbon. And what that effectively does is not only reduce our chances of meeting our 2030 and 2035 commitments to the Paris Agreement, but also stop our chances of meeting net zero by 2050. Martha, how do you see it? Well, look, the MOU was with the province of Alberta, not with a lobby. I personally think the MOU is historic. I think this is a fantastic development in the relationship between the federal government and Alberta,

and frankly, I think all provinces, because it shows a willingness on the part of the federal government to work with provinces. You know, I just, I find Canada has set goals for a variety of things in the past. But, you know, when we set those goals, we were part of what felt like a global, consensus, you know, the Paris Accord. But I tell you, you know, it's 2026 and the world has changed so dramatically. And I give kudos to Mark Carney for actually recognizing he's, you know, he's had very strong climate views in the past. And I think very good intentions.

But he's also the head of a government at a time where we've realized we need to spend billions of dollars on national security, on national defense. on economic diversification. We need to align our policies with security, with economic diversification, and economic diversification of all of the sectors that are so important for the Canadian economy. And I will just finish off.

So I think all of this is fantastic. I think that's probably not a surprise. But I will also say, I think Canada and Canadians, Canadians, I mean, every poll will show you. People care about climate, but they care way more right now about affordability, about where our money is going, what we're spending on, including things like, you know, this national security, economic diversification, et cetera, and our prosperity.

And so I just think we have extremely false arrogance in Canada sometimes about what we can accomplish in terms of climate. It's not very much. And when the rest of the world is now focused on energy security and affordability, I go back to it's a false arrogance to think, Canada can spend billions of dollars and impose regulations at the cost of billions of dollars that just makes absolutely no sense in 2026. Martha, can you help contextualize that? You said very little in terms of what Canada could do on climate. What do you mean by that?

So, you know, Canada contributes 1.3% of all of global emissions. I'm not, just to be clear, we all want to reduce emissions. But I want to make sure that the context, especially now that the world is facing, massively different concerns from an energy, a security perspective. Canada contributes 1.3% of global emissions, which is pretty negligible. And if we were to shut down our production of oil and gas tomorrow, which contributes about 12.5%, contributes about 12.5% of that 1.5%. We're not talking globally. We're insignificant.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing our part. But, you know, in 2020, when we were putting together the whole pathways project to get to, you know, the first step to get to net zero in the old sense, it was part of a global consensus. There were countries all around the world. And if Canada were one of everyone else, then that little bit could have actually contributed to making a difference if everybody pulled together. That was our attitude then. That's not happening anymore. And so for Canada to continue down this path, while the world has changed. changed just ignores the priorities facing Canadians right now. And it's not to take away from

climate, the importance of climate, the importance of emissions reduction. It's all about being pragmatic and realistic as Canadians. Caroline, a few things for you to respond there, but I saw you nodding your head in disagreement. So help me understand a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that Mrs. Hallfinley is mentioning the global context because a big part of my job and what we do at Climate Action Network, Canada, is engaged with colleagues and jurisdictions across the world, including in key climate diplomacy moments. And so the first thing we have to say is that indeed in 2026, it is a very different world in terms of the economics of the energy transition and how we're seeing, for instance,

investments in renewable actually dwarf by twice the investments in oil and gas. And that's not just according to me. it's according to the international energy agency. And so when I hear things about the context in 2026, yes, of course, there is one party amidst the over 190 parties to the Paris Agreement that has left. That is the United States under Donald Trump, who is now driving forward an agenda

to maintain not only the United States, but the world's dependence on extremely volatile, costly fossil fuels that, by the way, are owned, including in Canada, by a majority of American companies. And so we have a choice. Are we going to follow this one country? Or are we going to look at where the rest of the world is going? The European Union has started at the beginning of the year to impose a tariff at the border on the basis of the carbon intensity of the good Faganport. China has driven immense growth, including in developing countries, in key sectors of the technologies of the future, which are increasingly electric. We're talking about solar PV,

photovoltaic. We're talking about electric vehicles. So in this moment where we have to diversify our economy, we have a choice. Are we going to double down in the economy of the past, an economy that is making us less healthy. You know, we're at the beginning of another wildfire season that is once again going to be devastating on communities and ecosystems, but it's also making us more economically vulnerable. When I say, you know, that part of my role is conversing with folks from around the world, we hear this argument that our country is doing a smaller share or is responsible for a smaller share of carbon pollution. Therefore, we shouldn't be so concerned.

I hear that from countries around the world. That has been the debate between the United States and China, who are the two most polluting economies. The reality of the climate crisis is that all countries need to work together to face it. And Canada, despite emitting 1.6% of global emissions, is one of the 10th largest bigger polluters in the world, and that's without counting the pollution of the fuels we export. So we have a responsibility,

but there's also an opportunity for us in this crucial moment while we are trying to diversify our economy away from President Trump's United States to actually invest in the technologies of the future that are already starting to. accelerate and dominate globally. All right. I want to switch gears a little bit. We just spoke to journalist Jen Gerson earlier about sort of the separatist sentiment in Alberta. And I'm wondering, Martha, building a pipeline, is it just the price to pay in

order to keep the province in Confederation? As we know, all eyes will be on October 19th. I am curious if that is part in parcel with sort of the conversations that are happening right now. I think the timing is purely coincidental, and it's really frustrating. I don't advocate for a pipeline to the West Coast for Alberta. I advocate for it and have done for years because I'm a Canadian and because of the importance both of this sector to our economic prosperity and for our economic diversification.

So just to be really clear, I'm not saying that any of this as an Albertan. This is a countrywide, massive part of our national GDP, And so, you know, we have to continue to reinforce the fact that this is a huge import to Canada. I don't disagree that if all countries were pulling together, Canada should do its part, but they're not anymore. And, you know, let's be honest, the investment in renewables in China was not because of any moral view that they should contribute to climate change. It's because their major cities were unlivable. And so they needed to electrify their urban transit. And good on them, they've now established technologies that they've done so much better than anybody else in building EVs.

But right now, being completely realistic in 2026, the world is focused on energy security. So for all those other countries, even the Europeans who were extremely tough on, you know, Canada has to do its part. And we have, we just, Germany just signed a deal with one of our LNG producers, right? We have countries around the world calling us, you talk to anybody in global affairs, talk to anybody, they're calling and saying, we need Canada's energy, we need Canada's oil and we need Canada's gas. And by the way, electricity, you can't transmit that across oceans. It has to be in the form of LNG.

we not only have an obligation to Canadians and Canadians' prosperity right now at a time of significant crisis, but we also have an obligation to our allies and to like-minded countries. And ask any one of them, which is their priority, that Canada actually deal with the tiny percentage of its commitment to global emissions right now, or actually get some energy infrastructure so that they can have energy security. And I can guarantee you what the answer will be. And so this is a moment, frankly, for Canada's to start being. realistic about Canada and what Canada can do and where we can contribute the most in the global environment that we have right now.

Katerline, I am curious about sort of the political price that could potentially, you know, cost Carney a little bit here. You know, as we know, Stephen Gilboe announced his resignation from Parliament last week over this, and there was a letter signed by 14 liberal MPs to the Prime Minister about concerns about these rollbacks. And I am curious, is there a price to be paid if Carney goes too far in that direction? Well, we conducting polling that we released last week to ask just this question to voters in 11 writings in British Columbia and Quebec.

And what we find is that voters by a margin of 7 to 10 actually really oppose the idea of public funding taxpayer dollars being invested in a pipeline to the West Coast. They are also less likely to vote or re-elect their MP, especially if it's a liberal MP, if that MP supports this type of public finance or other fossil fuel subsidies. So there seems to be very much a political cost to this idea that yet again a pipeline would appease separatist sentiment in Alberta. And I think I'm old enough to remember a pipeline called the Trans Mountain expansion that ended up costing tens of billions of dollars to Canadians.

And we are here now with separatist sentiment and tensions with the federal government that are higher than they were before. So I think we need to be very careful with that idea. I also want to come back to this idea of energy sovereignty because I have. agree with Martha, that energy security and sovereignty is where many countries in the world are really concerned right now. But what I hear, and I'm just back from Kenya, is that countries are looking to invest in their domestic capacity to meet their energy needs. So I think we need to really question this idea that exporting fuels will make Canada more economically strong in a

moment where countries are very much looking to meet their needs domestically and for many countries, including in Southeast Asia, where there are many markets that Canada is targeting. We're seeing a lot of demand destruction through investment in long-term policies that electrify whether it's cooking, whether it's transportation in a way that reduces demand in the long-term for fossil fuels. Martha. And most of those countries don't have the capacity to do that and they'll need at the very least LNG. I mean, the demand is, even the International Energy Agency has acknowledged the demand for oil and gas continues to go up. And now by far the key question is affordability. But can I just go back for a second?

How many writings did you pull? We have hundreds of writings in Canada. I will also say, as a former politician, I really really, don't subscribe to the concept of anonymity. If 14 MPs wanted to send a message to their leader and their prime minister, they should have actually acknowledged who they were. The second piece is that if it hadn't been from Mark Carney, I would argue that several of them probably wouldn't have a job right now, right? And Mark Carney got elected and his government got elected very much because Canadians realized we are in a time of significant challenge right now.

And we need somebody who can show the leadership, make the tough decisions that are needed at a time when Canada has to step up and acknowledge times have changed. And I'll go back. People are affordability housing, but absolutely national security, national prosperity. Transmountain expansion, it added almost a point and a half to our GDP the minute it started flowing, the expansion part. I mean, these are not small numbers. And this is important for the prosperity and the affordability for all Canadians.

And so personally, I don't care what color stripe the prime minister is. We see leadership now that is taking the import of Canada at a time of significant challenge and making some tough decisions. And I fully support that. These are going to be some tough decisions that we will continue to follow. Martha, Caroline, we are going to have to leave it there. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much. Merci. I'm Jan. Thank you for watching The Rundown. How much does climate change factor into who you vote for? Email us at rundown at TVO.org. Or as always, drop us a comment on our YouTube page and let us know what you think. Until then, I will see you next week.

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