Danielle Smith's reform is nudging Alberta separation vote from 'if' toward 'when'
UCP bill slashes total of signatures needed to force referendum activists were already planning
One hundred and seventy-seven thousand people.
That's roughly 3.5 per cent of Alberta's population. It's also the number of signatures that will be needed to force a separation referendum designed to take those five million people and their land out of Canada.
Alberta independence groups had already been gathering online registrants who were keen to add their names to a petition drive when the law required far more Albertans — around 600,000 — to sign up to trigger a constitutional referendum.
And then, the day after the federal election delivered a fourth consecutive Liberal government, Premier Danielle Smith's government tabled electoral reform legislation that suddenly made it far, far easier for activists to put Alberta's existence within Canada on the ballot for voters.
Alberta Prosperity Project, a group that was already plotting a referendum petition drive before the Mark Carney Liberals' win, claims that it now has a sufficient number of people registered online to become signatories to meet this lower threshold.
This was a federal election fought around how Canada could best unify in the face of the threat of U.S. tariffs and President Donald Trump's expressed desire to swallow our country whole. And now, dissatisfaction with that vote's results have stoked those who want a permanent rupture in Canadian unity.
Three-quarters oppose
Alberta separatism is widely known as a likely losing proposition — Smith herself noted to media Thursday an Angus Reid poll in early April showed 25 per cent support and 75 per cent opposition.
But what she wouldn't acknowledge is that her government has helped her province's separatist movement get much closer to what they were looking for.
"I'm not going to prejudge what citizens are going to do for a petition," Smith told a news conference, despite all the recent activism and publicity developing around one such petition in particular.
The premier instead extolled the virtues of making it easier for citizens to practice the "purest form of democracy" on, oh, any old issue of public importance.
Whether that was intended to be a wink to the grassroots anti-Liberal conservatives who form her political base or not, United Conservative Party president Rob Smith chose to see it that way.
"This announcement is giving you the pathway some of you are seeking today," he posted publicly on Facebook. "And making it easier…"
When a commenter said: "We want to hear a path charting to independence or 51st state," the party president replied: "Please read her announcement, Mr. Carson! It's in there…"
Rob Smith (no relation to the premier) referred all questions about his social media remarks to the premier and justice minister.
While you might imagine that a much lower threshold to require a sovereignty referendum would have been just what the pro-independence movement wanted and asked for, that's not the case, says one of its leaders.
"In fact, in many respects we didn't want it changed because we figured that the hurdle of getting to 600,000 would get us closer to the referendum plurality as well," Dennis Modry, a co-leader of the Alberta Prosperity Project, said in an interview Thursday with CBC News.
In other words, he's well aware of a newly enlarged gap between how easy it might be to trigger a binding referendum, and the much larger number of Alberta votes his side would need to actually win that ballot measure — probably more than one million.
His group has been collecting names and contact info for Albertans willing to physically sign a petition when a citizen's initiative drive gets launched. He said that database had 70,000 before the election, and 120,000 more since Monday night.
"The frustration with the current circumstances that Alberta finds itself in with … Eastern Canada is troublesome and troublesome to the point that there are certainly well more than the requisite number of people to force the referendum," said Modry, a former doctor. (He's also been an informal adviser to the premier, but said he hasn't discussed his referendum bid with her.)
To put the 177,000 figure in perspective, consider that 69,344 Calgarians signed the petition last year to recall Mayor Jyoti Gondek. That's from a population one-third the size of Alberta, and within only 60 days; the UCP amendments to election law would give referendum-seekers 120 days to gather enough autographs.
Meanwhile, 630,442 Albertans voted for the federal Liberals, whose victory appears to have stoked so much of this "West wants out" fervour.
Because Smith's electoral reforms could make the referendum less of an if than a when, that's a question worth asking Modry. He said his group will likely launch the petition drive in a matter of weeks, potentially this summer — the referendum question's wording is still to be determined.
Modry said he'd hope to trigger a referendum this summer once the provincial rules are changed, and would like to see it on the ballot in conjunction with this fall's municipal elections.
However, the timing of a vote is up to the provincial government.
Smith has said she's committed to Alberta sovereignty within a united Canada — for remaining in the country, but still wielding elbows to try to push Ottawa away from what the UCP perceive as intrusions into provincial jurisdiction. That's why Smith announced its latest constitutional challenge against a federal emissions policy on Thursday, this time the Clean Electricity Regulations.
The Alberta NDP is far from persuaded. It's calling Smith a separatist herself.
"Even flirting with a referendum to separate kills investment in the economy and damages relationships with First Nations people," New Democrat MLA Christina Gray said Thursday in question period.
"It's not going to help. It is going to make us the laughing-stock of Canada."
Multiple First Nations chiefs have warned Smith to tamp down separatist threats, because Alberta is on the land of Treaties 6, 7 and 8.
"Those are treaties with the Crown, and Alberta lacks the authority to interfere with or negate those treaties," Troy Knowlton, chief of the Piikani Nation, said in a statement.
"Proceeding down a path toward separation cannot be undertaken without the consent of Alberta's First Nations."
Popular opinion itself may make the referendum a doomed proposition, before any reckoning with Indigenous law or federal negotiation.
Tim Hoven, a conservative grassroots organizer who said he's pushing for separation because he doesn't "believe that Carney's going to do anything for Alberta," said there would be no chance of a successful referendum any time in the next six months.
"There's not enough time to change people's hearts," he said. According to his math, around seven-eighths of all Albertans who just voted for the federal Conservatives would have to back sovereignty for a "Yes" side to win.
And one Alberta Conservative heavyweight is positioning himself as an Alberta federalist. Former premier Jason Kenney posted a long message denouncing the Alberta separatist threat as a doomed movement that distracts from a productive conversation about Alberta's place in Canada.
"Separatists can't elect a dog catcher in Alberta," he wrote. "So why allow their futile ranting to dominate the debate, distract from the real issues, and distort Alberta's real identity as a proud, confident, patriotic province?"
Despite Smith making it far simpler to trigger a referendum, Hoven expects the current premier and her UCP members will stay federalist and won't help the independence movement. That would leave many conservative activists fighting on their own, and could prompt an exodus of members from the UCP, said Hoven, a key figure in the 2022 push to topple Kenney as party leader.
Sure, the UCP remains atop Alberta's political food chain, boasting this week $3.3 million in donations in the year's first three months, compared to $1 million for the NDP.
But seemingly out of nowhere, a separatist upstart party named the Alberta Republicans pulled in $122,970 by the end of March, and have announced veteran conservative organizer Cam Davies as leader.
The separatist movement appears far from majority support thus far. But it's proving quite capable of making some noise, and a new, easier path to forcing a referendum looks likely to keep the volume cranked high for months to come.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
