Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she would not hold another referendum on separation if a majority of Albertans vote to remain in Canada on October 19. Asked in a Calgary interview whether she would commit to that, Smith answered, “Not as long as I’m premier,” CBC News reported October 9.
Albertans will answer 10 questions in the referendum. Question 10 asks whether the province should remain in Canada or whether its government should begin the legal process toward a second, binding referendum on separating. Five other questions concern immigration and four concern Canada’s Constitution. Advance voting runs October 13 through 17, according to Elections Alberta.
Smith, who has said she will vote to remain, has called 50 percent plus one the threshold on the separation question. On the other nine, she told CBC that “majority rule” seems to be how most decisions are made.
The leaders of Alberta’s independence movement say the vote will not end their campaign, whatever the count. “We’re never giving up,” Jeff Rath, the lawyer for a group that organized an independence petition, told CBC. “The logic of independence is such that we’re not going home when this is all over.” Keith Wilson of Let Alberta Decide said the grievances behind the movement will remain after October 19. “This vote won’t resolve what’s broken in Canada and won’t fix how Albertans are treated poorly by Ottawa, so demands for fairness will continue,” he said.
The question has divided Smith’s own party. Polling cited by CBC found 53 percent of United Conservative Party (UCP) voters choosing the separation option and 40 percent choosing to remain, even as a September poll for CBC found 72 percent of all Albertans surveyed choosing to remain. A UCP member of the legislature, Jason Stephan of Red Deer-South, has said he voted for the separation option. Smith said she has no contact with some separatist leaders. “I’m kind of public enemy number one for that group,” she said.
The government added its own separation question to the ballot in May, after a judge quashed a citizen-led separation petition. The government and separatist leader Mitch Sylvestre are appealing that ruling.
Smith’s answer settles what her government would do after a vote to remain. It does not settle what Albertans who want to leave will do, and they say they will keep asking.
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