(Image: Jeff McIntosh)
Amid claims of US meddling, oil-rich Alberta will vote on whether to hold a binding referendum on leaving Canada. Foreign Editor David Pratt examines what’s at stake
Some have called it Canada’s “Brexit moment”. Even prime minister Mark Carney himself last week compared it to the vote that saw the UK leave the European Union.
“A dangerous bluff” was how Carney summed it up, before warning his fellow Canadians that it “comes at the worst possible time” and that “some outside our borders are working to break us so they can own us”.
No prizes for guessing who Carney was alluding to there. He might not have mentioned Donald Trump by name, but the US president’s vow to annex Canada and turn it into the 51st American state is well known.
For this reason then – among others – tomorrow’s referendum in Alberta province, in which residents will be asked if they want to remain part of Canada, matters a lot more than many might care to admit.
The referendum is nonbinding, which effectively means tomorrow’s vote is a referendum on whether to hold a referendum. That however, makes it no less significant, being as it’s the first time the oil rich province has ever put the question of separation to the public.
In all, there will be 10 questions for voters, each with its own colour-coded ballot. The last ballot they will see is question 10, on whether to hold a binding referendum on separation.
A simple majority in favour of separation could trigger that process. But then there are the nine other nonbinding questions about immigration, access to provincial services including education, social care and healthcare, and voter identification requirements.
If Carney’s take is right and this is the “worst possible moment” for Canada – running the risk as it does of fostering disunity in the country – then why have the vote right now, one might ask?
To answer this question it’s necessary to go back to the start of this year to trace the rapid escalation from a separatist petition into an official, multi-question government vote driven by Alberta premier Danielle Smith.
It was in January that Mitch Sylvestre of the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) was granted approval to launch an official petition demanding Alberta leave Canada.
That petition successfully gathered approximately 300,000 signatures, meeting a required threshold.
The following month, Smith announced that nine referendum questions covering regional concerns such as social services and immigration would be put to voters on October 19.
Separatist supporters gather during a rally in front of the Elections Alberta headquarters in Edmonton, Canada, on May 4, 2026, as they submit boxes of signatures in the hope of triggering an independence referendum. (Image: HENRY MARKEN)
Legal roadblock
THEN came an Alberta court effort to quash the petition and Smith, in an effort to circumvent the legal roadblock, announced a 10th referendum question to be added to the ballot, explicitly asking voters if Alberta should remain in Canada or hold a separate, binding vote on sovereignty. By May, it was as Smith put it, “time to have a vote, understand the will of Albertans on this subject, and move on”.
Some members of the separatist group had backed Smith’s candidacy for premier, though she herself in a video message last week said she had voted early for a united Canada.
Despite her support for Alberta remaining in Canada, Smith faced consistent and considerable pressure from separatists within her party to hold a referendum. Jared Wesley, a professor of political science at the University of Alberta, says Smith’s decision bears similarities with the decision taken by then UK prime minister David Cameron to hold the 2016 Brexit referendum on leaving the European Union.
“More or less, David Cameron called the bluff of his internal Brexiters that were putting pressure on him, and called a nationwide referendum thinking that he would win it.
“A lot of the same pressures are at play for Danielle Smith,” Wesley told the online academic media network The Conversation in a recent interview.
Which brings us to tomorrow’s full referendum vote itself, which marks the culmination of a remarkable rise for a cause long relegated to Alberta’s political fringes.
Canada, of course, is no stranger to separatist referendums.
The majority French-speaking province of Québec has had two referendums, in 1980 and 1995. Quebecers voted to remain in Canada both times, but by the slimmest of margins in 1995.
The separatist Parti Québécois won a provincial election earlier this month and has pledged to hold a third referendum, but only after Donald Trump has left office and if the party holds a majority.
The PQ was elected with a minority government on October 5, meaning it will rely on smaller parties to pass legislation.Canada is a federation of 10 provinces and three territories. While Ottawa is responsible for matters of national interest, such as defence, trade and foreign policy, the provinces and territories hold significant power overmedical care, education and land rights.
Tomorrow’s vote in Alberta, however, is the first referendum there and, according to “leave voters”, an independent Alberta would be free of “harmful federal policies” and assume total control of the province’s resources.
Separatist leader Mitch Sylvestre is seen during a rally in front of the Elections Alberta headquarters in Edmonton, Canada, on May 4, 2026, as they submit boxes of signatures in the hope of triggering an independence referendum. (Image: HENRY MARKEN)
Poorer subsidised
SIGNIFICANTLY, Alberta has the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves, and the separatists argue that the province’s energy wealth is subsidising poorer parts of the country and that bureaucracy in Ottawa has stifled the economy.
But the political alarm bells are ringing over the wider implications of the vote for Canada as a whole. Speaking at a large pro-Canada rally in Calgary last week, Carney urged Albertans not to use the vote simply to send Ottawa a message, saying a decisive result could settle the separation question.
“Don’t be fooled by the idea you can ‘send a message’ with your vote,” Carney said. “This is not poker. A vote against Canada is a dangerous bluff that will lead to years of deep division and great uncertainty.”
Read more
Carney, who grew up in Alberta, has previously said “the best place for Alberta is in Canada” and that the country cannot succeed if it’s divided.
He released a video on Canadian Thanksgiving, October 12, saying national unity is critical as Canada fights threats from abroad, including a trade war with the US.
Carney, who has campaigned for Alberta to remain in Canada, spent Thursday doing just that in Calgary before addressing the Forever Canadian rally at the BMO convention Centre. Meanwhile, those in favour of independence continued their own campaigning.
One group at the very centre of the separatist movement is the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) who view Carney with some considerable hostility.
The APP exploded in membership during the Covid pandemic and has hosted many events featuring anti-vaccine speakers over the years.
Founded by Christian nationalists, and led by former surgeon Dennis Modry, it has consistently pushed a far-right agenda according to numerous Canadian media outlets including PressProgress, an online portal that specialises in investigative journalism and tracking right-wing extremism
“The APP’s message is not just that Alberta’s full separation from Canada is the only way for the province to escape the control of what they see as a corrupt eastern political establishment – but also that it can only happen through support from the United States,” noted one recent PressProgress report.
“They have said previously that the organisation is not interested in working within the confines of Canada’s Constitution to achieve independence. Typical talking points at APP events are pipelines (they want more), immigration (they want less) and general antipathy towards prime minister Mark Carney and Ottawa more broadly,” the report concluded.
Canadian mainstream media coverage has also been awash with reports exposing alleged US interference and cross-border collusion ahead of tomorrow’s vote.
In early October, in what became known as the “Elephant in the Room” investigation, Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper ran a major exposé that uncovered meetings held on both sides of the border.
Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta and leader of the United Conservative Party (UCP), speaks during a press conference at the Alberta Legislature on May 6, 2025, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (Image: NurPhoto)
Trump meeting
MOST controversially, The Globe reported that Alberta separatist delegates travelled to Washington, DC earlier in the year where they met Trump administration officials inside US State Department offices.
There they allegedly offered access to Alberta’s fresh water supplies, crude oil royalty payments, and land access for a railway to Alaska as part of an incentive to American officials in exchange for diplomatic and independence assistance.
It’s important to note here, however, that the Globe’s report did not allege that any agreement was reached between separatist and US officials.
But Jeff Rath, APP legal counsel who attended the meetings, later told the Financial Times (FT) that “the US is extremely enthusiastic about a free and independent Alberta”.
The FT report went on to cite Rath as claiming that he had a “much stronger relationship” with the Trump administration than with Carney.
At the time of the FT report in January, British Columbia premier David Eby described it as alarming because Trump is “not particularly respectful to Canada’s sovereignty”.
“To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that. And that word is treason,” Eby later told reporters in Ottawa.
In light of such controversial reports and accounts, especially that of the Globe’s initial “Elephant in the Room ” investigation, the non-profit advocacy group Public Interest Alberta called for a formal inquiry into whether foreign interference has taken place, saying campaigners “appear to have been colluding with American operatives”.
But there have been other controversies, too, in the run-up to the referendum – such as the “Centurion Project” data leak.
This was one of the largest data breaches in Canadian political history, and involved the exposure of the private information of 2.95 million registered voters.
The leak centred on allegations that US operatives provided specialised campaign software designed to boost voter turnout.
This software was claimed to have been used to build a portal that exposed Alberta’s entire voter registry list, sparking severe privacy and legality concerns.
The list was provided to the Republican party of Alberta, which is legally registered, but was then improperly shared with the Centurion Project, a pro-separation group which allegedly used the list to target voters.
A court ordered the database to be taken down, and both Elections Alberta and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) launched investigations. But analysts say the data had probably been copied and shared already.
Among the names visible on the database were prominent politicians, elections officials, senators, judges, Crown prosecutors, journalists and other public figures.
And so as tomorrow’s vote looms and separatists conduct their final weekend campaigning flying the royal blue Alberta flag, those in favour of a united Canada sport the more familiar red-and-white maple leaf banner of their country.
But flag waving aside, the stakes could not be higher say analysts, among them Dr Patrick Lennox a prominent Canadian writer, national security scholar, and consultant based in Edmonton.
In his latest book On Treason: Alberta Separatism, Foreign Interference, and Canada’s Survival in a Revolutionary Age, Lennox argues that Alberta’s separatists are committing “moral treason” against Canada.
Bigger threat
IN a recent interview with broadcaster CBC, Lennox reiterated his few that the separatists are “pushing an agenda aimed at destroying the country, while also opening the door to a bigger threat: foreign players whose ultimate goal is to weaken – and dismantle – liberal democracies”.
This weekend, Carney was back in the province he calls home, making that very point, albeit in a different way, telling Albertans that “Canada is better with Alberta”.
The prime minister’s efforts to get “stay” supporters out to the polls will take encouragement from an Ipsos poll conducted between September 18 and 22 exclusively for Canadian news network Global News.
It found that 70 of Albertan respondents wanted to remain part of Canada, while just 20% said they wanted an actual binding independence referendum.
Speaking to journalists, Thomas Lukaszuk, the former Alberta cabinet minister who has been spearheading the Forever Canadian campaign, was upbeat.
“Albertans are very passionate about being Canadian… and I think they want to send a strong message to [premier] Danielle Smith, to the rest of Canada… and frankly to the world that Alberta is not going to be the weak link in our confederation,” insisted Lukaszuk.
In one of his final campaign messages this weekend, Carney has asked Albertans to “vote like Canada depends on it”. Tomorrow will tell whether they heed the prime minister’s call.