Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she would hold a referendum on provincial separation next year if citizens gather the required signatures on a petition.
Smith, in a livestream address, says she wants a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada but the voices of those unhappy with Confederation are not fringe extremists and must be listened to.
“The vast majority of these individuals are not fringe voices to be marginalized or vilified. They are loyal Albertans. They are, quite literally, our friends and neighbors who’ve just had enough of having their livelihoods and prosperity attacked by a hostile federal government,” Smith said.
“They’re frustrated, and they have every reason to be.”
The speech comes a week after Smith’s United Conservative government introduced legislation that, if passed, will sharply reduce the bar petitioners need to meet to trigger a provincial referendum.
The bill, introduced the day after the federal election, would change citizen-initiated referendum rules to require a petition signed by 10 per cent of the eligible voters in a previous general election — down from 20 per cent of total registered voters.
Applicants would also get 120 days, rather than 90, to collect the required 177,000 signatures.
“To be clear from the outset, our government will not be putting a vote on separation from Canada on the referendum ballot,” Smith said on Monday.
“However, if there is a successful citizen-led referendum petition that is able to gather the requisite number of signatures requesting such a question to be put on a referendum, our government will respect the democratic process and include that question on the 2026 provincial referendum ballot, as well.”
As Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in person in Washington on Tuesday to discuss the tariff trade war and other issues, Smith said Liberal rule has turned Canada into an international laughingstock.
“We have the most abundant and accessible natural resources of any country on Earth, and yet we landlock them, sell what we do produce to a single customer to the south of us while enabling polluting dictatorships to eat our lunch,” she said.
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Smith said a rise in popular support for infrastructure projects across Canada, like pipelines, gives her hope, and she will continue working on negotiating a fair deal with the prime minister “in good faith.”
Meanwhile, her government is to appoint a negotiation team to try to bring an end to federal policies that have long irritated the province, and to demand guaranteed access to tidewater for Alberta’s resource exports including oil and gas.
Smith said she will also chair what she’s now calling an Alberta Next panel, hosting a series of town halls to hear ideas and grievances from Albertans.
“It is likely we will place some of the more popular ideas discussed with the panel to a provincial referendum so that all Albertans can vote on them sometime in 2026,” she said.
The premier’s broadcast comes after hundreds of people rallied at the Alberta legislature Saturday to support seceding from Canada, with some saying they were prompted by federal election results that saw the Liberals win their fourth consecutive term.
Smith said her government’s actions are not in response to the fact their preferred candidate, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, and his party lost the election.
“It’s that the same Liberal government, with almost all the same ministers responsible for our nation’s inflation, housing, crime and budget crisis, and that oversaw the attack on our provincial economy for the past 10 years, have been returned to power,” she said.
First Nations leaders representing the Assembly of First Nations and communities in Treaty 6, 7, and 8 territories spoke out last week, saying Alberta doesn’t have the authority to interfere with or negate treaties.
Many have noted the treaties predate the province, and that Alberta doesn’t have the authority to separate lands protected by those treaties.
Smith said she is committed to protecting, upholding and honoring treaties.
“Therefore, any citizen-initiated referendum question must not violate the constitutional rights of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples and must uphold and honour treaties 6, 7, and 8 should any referendum question ever pass.
“This is non-negotiable.”
Smith said Alberta has no choice but to take steps to combat a decade of hostile federal Liberal policies and laws she says have not only taken an unfair share of Alberta’s wealth but in doing so have also undermined the oil and gas industry that drives its economy.
She says in the meantime she will negotiate an end to some of these federal policies while also hosting a series of town halls to hear ideas and grievances from Albertans, and says some of those ideas may also find their way into referendum questions.
The premier didn’t speak to the media after the speech, but is scheduled to hold a news conference with reporters Tuesday.
— With files from Karen Bartko, Global News
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